


restart this heart of mine

by mjonesing (klassmartin)



Category: Spider-Man (Tom Holland Movies)
Genre: ALL ABOARD THE ANGST TRAIN, Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Ghosts, Bad sciencing, Because he is Besotted (TM), But not Scrappy Doo from the live action movie of course, Casper the Friendly Ghost References, F/M, Fluff and Angst, Friends to Lovers, MJ giving Mystery Inc. a run for their money, MJ is a more capable Fred and Peter is probably Scrappy Doo, MJ: oh fuck. I see dead people, Memory Loss, Next stop: Heartache Junction, Peter: you can SEE ME?!, Pining, Plot Twists, Solving Mysteries, Strangers to Friends, Tell me I'm wrong though, The little guy from the cartoons following the team around, Why did I tag this Fluff there is not much of that here, because OF COURSE THERE IS, no ghosts were harmed in the making of this fic, not technically MCD
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-10
Updated: 2020-10-31
Packaged: 2021-03-07 15:53:26
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 22,000
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26930194
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/klassmartin/pseuds/mjonesing
Summary: "Do you threaten everyone who appears in your personal space or is that just reserved for me?"Michelle glares at him, holding her scissors a little higher so they're aimed at his throat."Okay, bad time for jokes, noted." His foot twitches like he wants to take a step, but instead he pushes his fists into his pockets. "So, hi. I'm a, uh - I'm a ghost."She stares blankly back. "You're a what now?"-----Or: MJ reluctantly befriends the ghost haunting her new dorm room, becomes an amateur detective, learns there's more to life, and agonises over the classic conundrum of what makes up the soul of a person; nature or nurture.
Relationships: Michelle Jones/Peter Parker
Comments: 155
Kudos: 147





	1. Wage war on gravity

**Author's Note:**

> HAPPY OCTOBER!
> 
> Welcome to the Ghost!AU I've been writing since before Summer began. It is supposed to be a oneshot and is written as such, but I'm too excited to wait for Halloween to post it all so I've split it into four parts, one for each Saturday of the month. If you want to wait and read it as it's intended to be, the last part will be posted on the 31st.
> 
> A full list of references will probably be posted with the last chapter, but for now, the title is from Nine by Sleeping At Last.
> 
> My eternal gratitude and appreciation to @michellesbohh and @spidermanhomecomeme who listened to me talk about this monstrosity of a fic endlessly, and then read it to provide me with the validation I needed to send it out into the world.

"That's the last one," her mother cheers, hands pressed into her back as she arches it through the pain. "Remind me to get you a Kindle for Christmas."

Michelle hisses in disgust. "How dare you."

"Yeah, yeah. I know." Vanessa wipes the sweat from her forehead and falls down onto the lumpy, fourth-hand armchair. "Can't believe my baby is all grown up!"

"It's college, it's not that big a deal." Michelle busies herself opening the box marked  _ Kitchen _ , pulling out two cans of soda. She tosses one to her mother and cracks open the other, taking a long drink.

"Au Contraire, my darling. It's a huge deal. You've been working for this since you were six years old and saw Legally Blonde for the very first time. Now, here you are; the first step to your Harvard dream."

"Mom!" she squeaks. "That is  _ not  _ why I want to go to Harvard!"

"Save it for your new friends. No use lying to your ol' Mama." Vanessa smiles, rising from her seat to pat her adoringly on the cheek. "I'm so proud of you, Michelle."

"Thanks, Mom." Michelle shrinks away and fiddles with the can top. Vanessa just watches her in that soft way all mother's look at their children; like she's absolutely perfect, incapable of wrongdoing. It makes her feel uneasy in her own skin. "Just need to get through four years at Columbia; then I'll be proud of me too."

“‘Be proud of what you have achieved, don’t worry about what you have yet to achieve,’” her mother quotes, taking her daughter’s hand. “You should already be proud of yourself, sweetie. You’ve done so much with your life already.”

“But not nearly enough.” Michelle squeezes around her mother’s grip. “‘Oh, it's delightful to have ambitions. I'm so glad I have such a lot. And there never seems to be any end to them-- that's the best of it. Just as soon as you attain to one ambition you see another one glittering higher up still. It does make life so interesting.’”

Vanessa laughs. “L.M. Montgomery?”

“Of course.”

“Very well. Just don’t let all that ambition stop you from living.”

It takes another twenty minutes, but finally her mother leaves and Michelle is alone - something she's never much minded until now. At least in the past she'd always had her mom, no matter how few friends she was able to keep around. Now, hundreds of miles away from home, she has neither.

She quickly swallows down the sudden lump in her throat, and looks around the single dorm room. It's tiny and bland, but it's home for the next year.

Michelle begins to unpack, finding her posters and bed sheets.

"Okay," she mutters to herself, "Time to get to work."

* * *

It's one am, and Michelle. Is. _ Tired. _

She's been in the library since seven this morning, running on granola bars and caffeine while she studies and finishes her first college assignment for Political Theory. She's got class in seven hours and she needs a hot shower. Possibly some kind of substantial food. Definitely some painkillers for the throbbing of her head.

What she does not need, however, is an intruder in her room.

The shadowy figure lurks in the far corner, a hand resting on the lowest shelf hung above her tiny desk. From her spot at the threshold, she guesses it's someone young, around her height, and in no particular rush. They don't seem to have heard her come in - a stroke of luck for her, since she happens to be prepared.

With a foot propping the door open, she eases a hand into her bag and pulls out the taser her mom had gifted her. Her breath gets stuck in her throat as she silently counts to five, finding her courage.

"You have three seconds to put down the book and turn around with your hands on your head, or I send 50,000 volts straight into your -"

The intruder spins on the spot, staring at her in alarm. "Are you talking to me?"

"I don't see anyone else who's broken into my room." Michelle strengthens her hold on the taser so she can hit the light switch on the wall beside her. The figure flinches from the sudden light, and when they pull their hand away from their face, Michelle sees a boy about her age frowning back at her. His hair is dark, skin so pale she can almost see the moonlight streaming through the window. Brown eyes flicker over her form, a strange mix of panic and confusion etched into the lines of his face.

"I don't understand. How are you -" Michelle's finger twitches against the trigger and he steps back, hands up in submission. "Okay, okay, no need for any of that. Let's just chill out, okay."

She scoffs, his apprehension spurring her two steps forward. "Are you really telling me to chill out right now? You, the  _ criminal? _ Why are you here and what do you want?"

"Right, see, here's the thing." He glances back and forth between the crackling of electricity and her face. "I don't think you're going to believe me, so I'd prefer if you put down the taser first."

"I'm going to count from three, and you better start explaining yourself. Three -"

"No, please -"

"- Two -"

"- I need a little longer -"

"- One."

Michelle goes to squeeze the trigger but suddenly the boy is directly in front of her, ice cold hands wrapped around the taser and immobilizing her trigger finger. She gasps at both the speed and chill of his touch. "What the hell?"

"I'm sorry,  _ so _ sorry, can you just… Can we put down the weapon and have a conversation? Please?"

She presses her lips into a straight line. "No."

And then she swings her fist.

It throws her off-balance when her hand fails to meet his cheek, momentum dragging her forward. 

When she whirls around to try again the boy is gone, the taser laying on her bedspread. She looks desperately around her; takes in the locked window and closed door, looks under her desk and in the closet.

He's gone, without a trace.

Everything exactly as she left it this morning in her haste to get to the library.

_ Huh. _

Maybe she needs to get some sleep.

* * *

Except the next day she's working at her laptop when the boy appears at her side, looking at that goddamn shelf again.

"Fuck! Dude, what are you doing?!"

The boy jumps about a foot in the air, spinning to face her in alarm. When his dark eyes fall on her, his face settles into a sheepish smile. "Oh, hello again."

"I repeat, what are you doing?" Michelle grabs blindly for the scissors in her desk tidy, fear slicing up her spine. He looks exactly the same as yesterday; hair a styled mess, still in jeans that look torn from use rather than fashion, a black t-shirt stretched over his rather impressive -

Ew. What is  _ she  _ doing?

Her palm makes contact with cool metal and she thrusts it into the small space between them, standing up to take advantage of the slight height difference. He seems vastly less threatened than he did last night, barely looking at her makeshift weapon as he leans against the edge of the desk with his hip.

"Do you threaten everyone who appears in your personal space or is that just reserved for me?"

Michelle glares at him, holding her scissors a little higher so they're aimed at his throat.

"Okay, bad time for jokes, noted." His foot twitches like he wants to take a step, but instead he pushes his fists into his pockets. "So, hi. I'm a, uh - I'm a ghost."

She stares blankly back. "You're a what now?"

"A ghost, I think. I'm not really sure?" He shrugs one shoulder.

Michelle snorts. She scoffs. She laughs.

Because there's  _ no way. _ Right? This is some stupid freshman prank and any minute now a group of frat boys are going to burst out of her closet with a camera rolling and laugh at her with a slap of their knee and -

"I'm serious!" he whines. "This isn't a joke!"

"You expect me to believe you're a -"

The boy vanishes, right in front of her. 

She darts away from her seat, looking wildly around the room, but there's no sign of him. Just like yesterday, she searches all the places he could be hiding, her brain so confused with the encounter that it's completely blank. Once again, there’s no trace of him. It’s just a room full of her belongings and her confusion.

After a time, she rubs her eyes and goes to sit back down, only to find him sitting in her place.

"Hi." He waves.

"What the fuck," she whispers, her shoulders nearly at her ears. "What the fuck, what the -"

"Fuck? You were gonna say fuck?" He smirks, and she would tell him off but  _ he's a ghost what the fuck is happening? _

"You're not a ghost. That's ridiculous." She tries to swallow the lump in her throat. Suddenly, she's unable to even blink. "There's no concrete, scientific proof that ghosts exist… And even if they did - which they don't - why would you be… Why would you be here? In my dorm?"

The boy appears in front of her and she yelps, falling back onto her bed. "Stop  _ doing _ that!"

"I'm sorry!" He scuffs his sneakers against her carpet, looking decently abashed. "It's how I move - you walk, I… I ping about."

"H-How… How do you do that?" She sits up a little straighter, not trusting her shaky knees right now. She pokes him with the blunt end of her scissors and they pass right through his arm; the boy shivers. "Do you just think and 'poof!' or…"

He looks back to her, his eyebrows raised in surprise. "You believe me?"

"Hell no. I think I'm napping on that desk right now and any minute I'm going to wake up and realise this is all some stupid, elaborate dream. But if that's the case, I might as well lean into it."

"Oh." He flashes across the room, back in the desk chair that creaks round ten degrees. "For the record, I'm pretty sure this is real."

"How did you move the chair?" She watches him closely, realising now that he's a little translucent - the lit screen of her laptop shining dimly through his neck as he slouches.

"I can affect some level of change; touching things is pretty easy. Moving them takes concentration." He twists his torso and picks up the closest thing within reach - a green highlighter, which he tosses up into the air and catches deftly between two fingers.

"Do you have a name?"

He throws the highlighter again, his voice casual as he replies. "Nope."

"You don't have one or you don't want to tell me?"

It falls through his hand, then through his stomach, landing on the chair. "I don't know it."

Her body leans towards him, head tilted as he crosses the room in a fraction of a second. He's looking at that shelf, again, his back to her now. "How do you not know your name?"

His shoulder blades shift beneath the fabric of his shirt as he shrugs. 

"It's pretty easy when you don't remember anything else about your life." He pauses, a finger trailing down the spine of one of the books. "If I had a life, that is."

“You don’t remember anything?”

“Nope. There’s just… This.”

Michelle stands and approaches him carefully, mind still trying to grapple with the strange turn her morning has taken. The boy doesn't look away from her row of books but he must sense her closing in, the tendons in his arm jumping visibly. She takes a steadying breath and raises a quivering hand, silently encouraging herself when it hovers above his shoulder.

She doesn't even know if it'll work. All she knows is the scissors went right through but last night he'd chilled her fingers with his touch.

If it works, this must be real. That is the deal she makes with herself.

"It's okay," he says gently, almost curious. 

When she finally manages to lower it, she's surprised to see her hand make contact. It's strange - she knows she's touching him but she can barely feel the texture of the fabric beneath it. Her hand is cold but it's different than before - maybe because of the clothes, but it's like her whole hand is trapped in a cooler rather than just her palm.

Something moves under her hand and she realises it’s his muscles, flexing and trembling as he fights to stay still, letting her process the situation she’s found herself in. 

"Are you making this happen?" she says, just above a whisper.

He nods and reaches back his hand. Her fingers slip from his shoulder to draw without meaning against his wrist. So quietly she almost misses it, he inhales sharply at the contact.

"This is the first time someone has touched me."

A moment passes, her hand lingering against him as she tries to sort through the muddle in her head. How is this happening to her right now? She's never seen a ghost before, to the best of her knowledge - and she's sure she'd have noticed, given how she can almost read the word ‘Jack’ through the finger still frozen in place against the book’s spine - and ghosts don't even  _ exist _ . They're a myth, a story you tell children to make them shriek with fear and laughter.

Does this mean other mythical creatures are real? Vampires or zombies or freaking unicorns?

And why is she apparently the only one to see him? What makes her so special? Have no other residents of this room noticed him lingering around before?

There is also the question of  _ why  _ he's here. Ghost stories would imply he's tethered here by something - perhaps an object, or he died in this room some amount of years ago, or he has some kind of unfinished business. Is she supposed to help him with that? He doesn't seem particularly keen to leave, and even if he was, he claims to have no memory of a life before this one. How do you solve someone's final problem when they cannot recall what it is.

He clears his throat and she jolts from her thoughts.

Her hand withdraws to massage her temples against a growing migraine. Maybe this is all just some hallucination caused by her brain trying to cope with the pain. It has been a while since she had a good night’s sleep.

She scrunches her eyes tightly closed, and when she opens them he's still there, facing her now with a grim smile.

"Still see me?"

"Unfortunately."

"I'm sorry," he says genuinely, looking pained. "I don't know why this is happening, but if I can just say… It's nice to finally have someone to talk to."

And this, alas, is the thing that forces forward the words she so reluctantly wants to say; because even though this whole nightmare is guaranteed to end in some kind of epic blaze of failure and embarrassment on her part, this poor boy has spent however long his current lack of life has lasted so far completely alone, with no way of changing his own circumstance.

He is _ lonely, _ and if the last few years of struggling to create meaningful friendships has taught her anything, it's that loneliness sucks.

So she asks, her voice flat and dry but her heart full of intention, "What can I do?"

* * *

The answer is far more complicated than she could have imagined.

They talk about his circumstances for a week. Between her classes, studying, and her part-time job at the library, there's not a huge amount of time for her to solve the issues of a ghost, but she finds snippets of time between all of this to quiz him on anything that springs to mind, jotting down his answers in the back of her notebook.

She learns things like his severely muted senses; he can't smell or taste but he can hear and see to a reasonable degree, sometimes squinting when trying to see things in the distance. He can't just walk out of her room and wander the campus - he seems to be trapped within these walls, unable to pass the threshold. He doesn't appear to get tired or hungry, but he breathes - she holds her finger below his nose once without explanation and feels the gentle puff of air leaving it.

When he's not in her room, he can't hear her talking to him - she's taken to rather boringly calling him Casper, a joke he doesn't understand until she leaves it playing for him when she goes to class one day, and he celebrates this by spending the next two days sitting on her ceiling when he talks to her.

She leaves a lot of things playing for him when she goes out, after that. After all, she knows that  _ she'd  _ be bored if she were an anomaly in the world that couldn't take long naps to pass the endless span of time that was her future.

Now there's someone that can see whatever he gets up to, the boy tends to give her space when they're not actively discussing his case, which she's grateful for; her patience with people can sometimes run thin, and she can't imagine she'd be very amenable to him if he were loitering in her space all the time.

Still, it begs an important question, one that doesn't occur to her until ten days after they meet.

She's procrastinating on her essay by watching documentaries on Netflix - just because he's a ghost doesn't mean she's not going to try and make her entertainment choices at least moderately educational - when he disappears from the foot of her bed to right in front of the laptop screen, his head tilted in interest as the lion tackles a gazelle to the ground.

Though terribly inconvenient, this isn't hugely out of the norm. While he seems to have some level of general knowledge, there are moments when he asks her about things that anyone who's finished elementary school should know the answer to, and apparently the food chain is one of those things.

She watches him from her armchair, considering her words before leaning forward to pause the episode. "Where do you go when you're not here?"

His expression darkens like an eclipse. Maybe this is why they've yet to discuss it. "Oh, you know… Places."

Something tells her that prying is the wrong move, but she's inquisitive to a fault and his hesitation intrigues her. "What places?"

"I don't know, just  _ places _ . A rooftop, sometimes." He shrugs and appears at that damn shelf again, making himself busy by opening her grandma's antique Russian dolls - lining them up in size order like a cascading, identical family. His brow furrows as he concentrates on the simple movements. "There's a room kinda like this one, but it's empty. A factory, I think; maybe a warehouse? But I don't go there often. And then -"

He flickers, bouncing from the dolls to the ceiling to her bed and back again in no longer than two seconds. It doesn't seem like he knows he did it. Michelle contemplates trying to reach out and comfort him somehow - he's just staring at the smallest figure now, too far away from its family at the other end of the shelf - but then he's falling into her desk chair and it slides a little across the carpet, catching him off-guard.

"Is it only those places?" she asks quietly, and he nods, picking up the rubber band ball and throwing it into the air, materialising on the ceiling to catch it. She watches him play catch with himself for a moment before giving into the question tugging at her tongue. "Why can't you go anywhere else?"

"I don't know. I tried, but it's like… Like they're pre-set for me. Maybe they were important to me, once upon a time."

"You don't remember anything about them?"

"I  _ told _ you, this is the only life I know."

"But there has to be -"

"There's nothing!" 

He grimaces and the ball falls through his hand. His words are heavy, like he's been through all of this before, and maybe he has - maybe every step she’ll try to take in solving his mystery will just lead her down a path he already forged however long ago.

Maybe this is all there is. Maybe he's just a boy, trapped between the walls of this world and another, for no other reason than the universe being a cold, unkind place to exist.

She presses play and lets the charged silence settle over them. He appears briefly at the foot of her bed again, his gaze trained on the screen, but after a few minutes she blinks and he's disappeared completely.

That afternoon, she takes the empty seat furthest away from the lecturer and pulls out her belongings, turning to the back of her notebook while she waits for the rest of her peers to trudge through the open doors. The most recent note was added a few hours before; the new information he’s given her lingering in her mind. She’s run it over and over in her mind, pulling at its loose thread until the contents are laid bare. 

Something about what he'd said bugs her. Maybe it’s what he  _ didn’t  _ say; maybe it’s the tension in between the syllables like cement. Or maybe -

She reads it again, focusing solely on the words.

And then it hits her.

_ A rooftop. _

* * *

She gives him a few days to move past his despondent mood, sticking to safe topics like censorship within political protests and international humanitarian law. She rambles on and on while he listens - at first barely, but then with more intent as the days drift by - until she can't possibly hold the idea inside her mouth anymore.

It's just after nine on a brisk autumn night, and he's sitting so close to the sitcom playing on her phone that his nose almost touches the screen. She looks up from her research at her desk to blurt it out unceremoniously.

"I think I know how to help you."

He barely even glances her way. "Yeah?"

She throws a pencil so it knocks her phone from its precarious perch against a book. The boy looks at her like she's just demolished his high score in Ms. Pac-Man.

"The least you can do is give someone your attention when they say they might know how to fix… This." She waves her hand over his translucent body and his face twists in displeasure.

"Sorry. I just… I don't like getting my hopes up." He materialises on top of her desk, closer than he's normally comfortable with, elbows leaning against his crossed legs. "I'm listening, I promise."

She taps her nails against her notepad as she contemplates her words. "There has to be a reason I can see you, right?"

"I guess."

"What if… What if I'm supposed to save you? Like... I can help, somehow. Give you closure, or whatever it is that's keeping you here."

He frowns. "How do you think you can help?"

It's not necessarily eager but he's not opposed to her proposition, so she soldiers through her nerves and gets right to the heart of the matter. "The only clues we have are in the places you can visit. So I'll track them down, and then we can go from there.

His head tilts to one side, interest now piqued, brown eyes alight. "How are you going to manage that?"

She opens the folder she's been compiling on her laptop since the idea struck. "You mentioned visiting a rooftop, and I figure you have to be able to  _ see _ things from there, right? Like, perhaps, a skyline."

When she turns the screen to give him a better view, he squints at the thumbnails. She can see the moment he understands what she's saying - he leans back, his breath stuttering as he tries to find his voice.

"You want to try and identify the city the rooftop is in?" He pulls a face and she deflates - she's losing him already, before she's even persuaded him to try. "That seems kind of impossible. And what's the point? It might not be relevant to who I was before."

"Or it could be an important piece of the puzzle," she reminds him. "Can we at least try? There's no harm in that, right?"

He sighs and his cold fingers touch her arm as he leans closer to the screen again. "Okay, we can try."

And then he disappears completely, the chill of his presence still lingering by her shoulder.

She opens several of the images so they're ready and then busies herself making a cup of chamomile tea with the little kettle she'd found in a thrift shop. Excitement bubbles inside of her, the possibility of solving the next step in this mystery making her unable to stay still.

The boy appears right in front of her as she's carrying the steaming mug back to her desk, but she manages to repress the reflex to jump three foot in the air, getting used to his sudden intrusions.

"Had a good look?"

"Yeah, I think so."

She picks up her laptop and settles on top of her bed, back against the wall. He sits close beside her, crowding her space as he tries to look at the photo already on the screen. He shakes his head. "That building is too spiky."

"Patience, Casper." She waits until he sits back. "First thing's first; what time of day is it there?"

"It's dark. I could see the moon."

"So the weather was nice? Warm? What about clouds?"

He flickers away and then back, his expression more confident. "No rain. A few clouds, I think. I couldn't see the stars."

"And how high up are you?" When he pulls a face, she elaborates. "Is it definitely a city?"

"Yes. It's noisy." He looks up at the ceiling, tongue poking out of his mouth in concentration in a way that’s almost distracting. "The cars are small when I look down - so I'm high up, right?"

"Perfect." She closes a few of the windows that he's ruled out, then randomly selects the first image. "We've just narrowed it down from the whole world to busy cities currently experiencing nightfall - I'm going with American cities first, just because it seems more likely; but there's plenty of others if that doesn't turn up anything, so don't give up on me too quickly, okay?"

He nods and she points to the image. "Any of this familiar?"

"Uh… No, not really."

She clicks to the next image, and then the next, making her way through the most prominent landmarks that he may be able to see. Every photo makes him shake his head and despite his agreement, she can see him quickly losing any hope she's managed to raise in him. She's disappointed, trying to power through it - there's thousands of possible options and they're barely hitting the first hundred - but every ‘no’ just sinks her further into misery, until finally -

"Wait, go back one!" He leans so close she can no longer fully see the screen. "I think… It was in the distance but this…"

"Let me see!" She pushes at his shoulder but her hand just passes right through him. Still, the shock of it makes him jump back and then she sees it; their first clue.

"Are you sure?"

"Everything else around it is kinda boring - but  _ that  _ stands out." He disappears again for a second. "Yup, that's definitely it!"

"Is it close or -"

"Kind of? It's not too far away." He settles his gaze on her, almost vibrating out of his seat. "You know it?"

"Know it? Casper, that's the Unisphere in Queens. I could be there in an hour."


	2. Another domino falls

Michelle pauses in her walk down the street, consulting the crumpled piece of paper in her hands. It's a rather crude and probably inaccurate recreation of the ghost's view from the rooftop - between his frustrating inability to accurately describe what he can see and her lack of skill in drawing anything but lazy sketches of her peers in high school, she's pretty sure it won't be much help. But the boy's face had lit up so purely when she'd told him she might be able to find his location that now she's here, the following weekend, three hours into searching for somewhere that might be where he can appear.

Before setting out on her journey, they'd discovered pretty quickly that she couldn't hear him through any kind of technology. It made the already difficult task that much harder. Still, she'd set up an open line so at least he could be aware of her progress, talking into her earphones occasionally to update him that, nope, she'd yet to find anywhere that looks like a possibility.

"I hope you know how stupid I feel right now," she says quietly, brushing past a bickering family. "I don't even know if you're in my room right now. I could just be talking to myself."

There's a loud clatter that makes her heart skip a beat.

"Did you just throw something to make a noise?" There's no answering noise. "That or I'm talking to an intruder - A different intruder. You were the first."

There's another sound and she rolls her eyes.

"Hang on." She rushes forward, her eye stuck on a flash of something bright in the distance. "I think… The graffiti, you said it was yellow, right? Make a noise for yes."

A thump.

Finally she gets close enough and somehow, there it is - yellow graffiti on a grey brick wall, just like he'd described.

"I can't believe I found it. This is all actually real."

She can't hear him, but she knows exactly what he's saying:  _ You're only sure about that now?! _

Looking up at the buildings facing the graffiti, she squints against the sun and tries to work out where to start. They're in the middle of a residential area which will make access a little tricky, but she tries to focus on the positives - in front of her are the most probable options for the next solve of the mystery. Her ghost had said the graffiti was off to his left side so she heads that way, deciding there's three strong contenders.

She picks the middle one. Hopefully, even if she's wrong, she'll be able to see him.

Heading up the stairs, she holds back a groan when she finds the door locked. There's a long row of buttons labelled for each apartment inside, and she scans her eyes over it nervously. She'd seen in a TV show once that people would probably just buzz you into the building without many questions - a dangerous trait to discuss another time - but she still wavers.

She doesn't like lying. She's never been any good at it.

There's a knock from the other side of the door and she glances up in surprise to see a man smiling kindly at her. Realising she's in the way, she steps aside and he opens the door.

“Sorry,” she mumbles.

"It's okay. Were you looking for someone?" His head tilts to the side, his short cropped hair ruffling in the early autumn breeze.

"Uh…" She fidgets with her fingers and avoids his eyes. "Honestly, I just need to get to the roof."

He frowns and she points to the ancient camera she'd thrown around her neck this morning as a decoy, cleverly foreseeing an instance like this.

"You want to take pictures?"

"Of the Unisphere," she says in a rush when concern leaks into his expression. "Just the skyline. Nothing creepy."

"Oh! Sure!" He uses his key to open the door again and holds it open with another, even wider smile. "It's not the best view from here, but it's still pretty cool. Plus there's an old sofa up there so it's a nice place to chill out."

"Thanks," she says, her voice cracking. "This is nice of you."

"No worries. Just follow the stairs up and it's the door on the left - don't let it close behind you though, or you'll be trapped up there for a bit."

"Noted. Thanks again."

She heads up the stairs and curses the lack of elevator, already out of breath by the time she hits the fifth floor. It's a long climb but eventually she crashes into the roof door and greedily gulps in the fresh air. She picks up the brick propped beside the wall and jams it in the door frame.

It's almost quiet up here, the sound of traffic just a faint hum. In front of her she can see the faded blue of an ancient sofa the man had told her about, and perched on the rooftop ledge is her ghost, grinning at her in unadulterated happiness.

"You found it!" He holds out his arms proudly, looking around the space she's spent so long searching for. "First try as well.  _ Damn, _ you're good."

"Of course I am." She steps through some corroded litter and pauses before the edge, the glimpse she can barely get around his figure more than enough for her. "You didn't say it would be quite so high."

"It's a rooftop in the middle of a city. What did you expect?"

She raises an eyebrow, clutching the strap of her shoulder bag. "How do  _ you  _ know what to expect?"

He shrugs one shoulder and slouches back, her heart beginning to pound as he leans too far back. Somehow, he doesn't lose his balance, perfectly relaxed in his precarious position, and she quickly turns away to hide the echo of panic that flits across her face.

"So. Now what?"

It's the question she's been avoiding in her head all day. Because what  _ do _ they do now? The rooftop is just one place but it's by far the easiest - the other places he can go are almost impossible to track down and even then, it doesn't give them much to go on, especially if there's nothing important linking them. What if this really is just a random rooftop? What if this is a place he happens to be able to go because the skin of reality is a little thinner, or maybe because he's attached to something that was bought here after his death?

Ugh. She's been consuming far too much media on ghosts.

She lifts the camera from its resting place against her chest, pressing her eye to the viewfinder as she thinks through their options. Through the lens, she sees what the boy has seen for as long as he can remember - a skyline full of light and life and laughter, of thousands of people wasting their precious time by engaging in the little joys that inspire them. She sees a little girl in the arms of her doting father, two women curled up in front of the TV together, a young man scratching behind his dog's ears as he puts down the food bowl. From here she can see so many moments in people's lives, and the idea of watching this without being able to do the same breaks her heart.

The camera shutter clicks.

Michelle bites her lip against the tears burning behind her nose.

She straightens up and he's hovering beside her, a crease between his eyebrows. "Are you okay?"

"I'm always okay." She makes her way to the sofa and gingerly takes a seat on the sun-bleached cushion's edge. It's been days since it last rained and it's surprisingly comfortable, so she settles back a little further, unsurprised to see him already there, sitting upside down with his head dangling near the floor like a child. "What do you think we should do next?"

He hums tunelessly, feet tapping against the air to a quick beat. "Probably just enjoy the view. The sunset from up here is awesome."

She pokes his arm, her finger actually making contact. "That's not what I meant. Come on, Casper. This is your life; what do you want to do?"

"I don't know. This is the furthest I've ever gotten but it's still pretty meaningless - I'm grateful, truly, but this is just a place. It's new to you but I've spent plenty of time up here over the years."

She considers it as she lifts her camera once more, aiming it at the long curved line of his neck. Predictably, through the viewfinder, all she can see is the stuffing spilling from the sofa arm and a chip packet being dragged past by the wind.

“You know how you call me Casper?” She nods and he continues. “Can I call you something, too?”

“I already have a name.”

She can hear the eye roll in his voice. “I mean a fun name.”

“What you  _ mean  _ is a nickname.” She lowers the camera as his words echo in her ears. "Wait. You said years."

He pops out of view only to return to the same spot, this time the right way up. "Yeah. So?"

"How do you know it's been years? I mean I'd assumed, but how do you  _ know  _ that? Are you tracking it somehow? Do you remember certain dates?"

He scratches behind her ear. "Not really, I just - I guess it's just the people."

"The people?"

"Well, you're not the first person in that room - you're the first to see me, but there's been others. Before you was Jeremy, and before him there was Rhea. Demi, I think, and Rose."

Michelle jumps out of her seat, pouring over his words as she paces. "Is that everyone? Just those four?”

"Yeah, I'm pretty sure. Why?"

"Because that's our next step. Find out who lived in my room five years ago."

* * *

In every other possible scenario, she's completely for data protection and keeping crucial details of people’s identities secure.

However, her current predicament is so specific and unique that surely it deserves a free pass.

"I'm bored," he groans from above her as she glares at the email standing in her way. Her request for information had been denied for fairly obvious reasons, despite the overly planned out lie she'd concocted as an excuse. She taps her finger aimlessly against the keys of her laptop, trying to ignore the petulant note of his voice as she thinks through her next step.

"’Chelle-y, talk to me," he whines, dragging out his syllables until his meaning is almost lost.

"No. Stop being a Moaning Myrtle - and no way are you calling me that.”

His head pops into her line of vision, crouched low and upside down like something she’s seen before. "Please? I'm so bored."

"You're always bored, it's basically a given when you're a ghost."

"That's true, but since I met you I've had way more to do that just sulk and pull faces right in front of unsuspecting people."

His words are light but there's something meaningful to his tone that makes her pause, finally looking at the boy who can no longer meet her eye. He flickers out of sight only to appear again at his favourite shelf, then almost immediately back in her vicinity, perched on the edge of her desk with his legs swinging through the drawer she's forgotten to close. He fidgets with his fingers and she exhales heavily, closing the lid of her laptop and turning to him fully.

"I'm sorry we haven't made any more progress." She purses her lips and leans her head back onto the edge of her backrest. "I really thought this could lead somewhere, I swear. But I can't seem to get any information from the college, and trying to track down a girl called Rose who happened to attend Columbia four years ago is far more difficult than I'd anticipated. I shouldn't have gotten your hopes up."

He sinks slowly through the desk like a balloon losing its helium until only his feet are visible, suspended just above the carpet. If his despondent mood wasn't so tangible she'd have laughed.

"It's okay. I get it. You don't have to break it to me gently."

She frowns. "Why are you saying it like that? I'm not giving up, Casper. This is just a bump in the road."

“But -“

“I’m not giving up,” she repeats for emphasis, for him and herself.

“Okay, if you’re sure, Meech.”

“Ew, no - stop forcing nicknames!”

* * *

Michelle gives up.

Temporarily, she reasons, just until she finishes midterms. She doesn't say it outright and he never asks, but his increasingly low spirits - that even a pun that good can’t raise - betray his inner thoughts as she spends more and more time away from her room.

She feels bad, of course, but the more time that passes without any clear answers or possible leads, she’s losing faith in her ability to help him in some way; her company can only do so much, breaking up the sure monotony of his existence before her surprising ability appeared. And as the holidays encroach on them, she can’t help her mind wandering to the what ifs of the future, knowing she can only live in this room for long. How will he go on without her around? And worse still, in the lingering thoughts buried at the back of her mind, what will she do without him?

“So I’ve settled on a solid 9,” he announces instead of greeting her as she collapses through the door at two in the morning.

“That’s great.”

“Elle is a feminist icon and I’m honestly jealous of her hair.” He tugs at his short strands with a pout. “I’d ask what conditioner she uses, but that’s not going to do anything for me.”

“Uh-huh.”

“It only gets a point deducted for the unrealistic expectation it sets for housing. No way are their dorms even half that size. If there’s one thing I know tons about, it’s dorm rooms.”

“Mm.”

“Still, I get why you want to go to Harvard, now.”

She startles at that. “That is  _ not _ why I want to go to Harvard!”

“But your mom said -“

“You heard that?!” She drops her bag and tugs off her jacket to hide the flush of her cheeks. “How is that even possible?”

“You didn’t see me?”

“Clearly not.” She stares at him for a moment. “Hang on, are you saying that I didn’t see you at first?”

“I guess.” He shrugs one shoulder and reappears on her bed, rubbing the silky corner of her pillowcase between his fingers. “I didn’t think it was weird.”

Her mouth opens, a hundred new questions filling her mind. She drops onto her mattress. “I don’t understand.”

“I bet that’s driving you mad,” he says in amusement.

“If I’d always been able to see you, then… But if it just happened one day, then what changed?”

He lies on the ceiling above her, mouth twisted to one side as he thinks. “Maybe you hit your head.”

“I think I’d have spotted that kind of correlation before.”

“You wanted to see me?” She scoffs, folding her arms, and he glances down at his hand where it fidgets in his lap. “Needed to see… Something.”

She bolts upright, glaring at him as the heat of anger swells behind her sternum. “What do you mean? I didn't  _ need  _ any of this. No offense, but the sheer stress of trying to help you on top of being a freshman is crippling.”

He darts away to the shelf, unstacking the Russion dolls slowly and methodically, a practiced routine for him now; he lays them out, she closes them up when he leaves. His back is to her again, a move she hates because she can’t get a read on him like this, stuck watching the muscles move beneath his shirt, full of a strength and tension she can’t understand. He pauses on one of the dolls and she can see the painted smile through his palm, the soulless eyes staring back at him as he sighs.

“Yes,” he finally says, quiet and hesitant, “But… All of the people before you. They were always rushing in and out of here, going to classes or parties or study groups or... They had people over all the time. The only person you've had here is me, and you've never mentioned any other friends from your classes.”

“You think I'm lonely?” she asks, tears thick in her voice despite trying to force them down. 

“I was here the day you moved in,” he tells the smallest figurine. “I was here when you bailed on orientation drinks and stayed up reading. I was here when you woke up that first Saturday after a full week of classes and cried under the covers. But you didn't see me, every moment I was around. Not until that night."

His words hurt, cut into her in places she didn’t know existed, but then she remembers that night; her mom had called her and she'd stepped out of the library to hear her talk all about home, and when she'd asked what Michelle was up to, she had lied and said she'd been socialising enough. She had friends, she promised, some really nice people from her classes. 

For the rest of that night, she'd been unable to stop thinking about the last time she'd had a meaningful conversation with anyone, and then she'd gone home and found him.

Curling around her knees, Michelle muffles her whimper in the fabric of her skirt, tensing when something cold and comforting slips around her shoulders.

“I’m sorry, Michelle.” He tugs at her until she gives in, falling into his side. His fingers flex and she idly wonders how hard he has to try to be solid enough to hold her like this, fighting against his natural state to be there for her. “I didn’t mean to upset you.”

“I just… I don’t have the best of luck getting close to people, and I’m going to be  _ so _ mad if that’s the reason I can suddenly see you. Do you have any idea how hard I’ve worked to get here? It’s taken everything and I can’t slow down any time soon. I’m not lonely, Casper. I’m driven. I don’t have time for other people.”

“Yet you’re still trying to help me.” He squeezes her shoulder and she looks up to see this soft smile directed right at her, like he’s feeling the warmth of the sun for the very first time. “I know you’re basically stuck with me, but I think you’d be a really good friend to someone if you gave them the chance. You’re already a really good friend to me.”

She presses her lips together and nudges his side with her elbow. “You don’t know any better. You have no comparison.”

“I don’t need one. I just know it.”

“Thank you, Casper. That was… that was really nice.”

“No problem, Mimi.”

“That was the worst one yet.” She nudges him harder and when he laughs, she lays her head on his shoulder, exhaustion tugging at her eyelids. “You can call me MJ.”

* * *

A week later, she comes home late to find him lying down on her bed, a pillow sinking through the broadness of his chest as he curls around it with his eyes closed. He's breathing deeply enough that she could almost believe he was sleeping, were it not for the fact she knows he's incapable.

He doesn't react to her entrance and she's never seen him so peaceful, so she quietly sets down her belongings and heads to the bathroom to shower and change. When she comes back he's still lying there, half his body hidden by the mattress, occasionally flickering out of sight in the way that drives her crazy. She's exhausted but she's never really shared a bed with someone before - never mind with a  _ ghost  _ \- and it feels weird to just climb in and invade his space - or his body, she supposes.

It's a quandary she's still stuck on ten minutes later, when his eyes open in time with a violent jolt that ripples down to his toes.

"MJ?" he gasps when he sees her staring from the middle of the room, tugging at the frayed hem of her pyjama shorts. "What are you doing?"

"Watching you sleep," she confesses before she can regain control over her tongue.

He rubs at his eyes and sits up. "I don't sleep."

"Sure looked like it."

He curls his knees up and rests his elbows on top of them, staring at his fingers. "I was thinking."

"Okay." She watches him fidget for a moment before sighing, pulling her desk chair over so she can sit in front of him. "Care to share?"

"There's something I haven't told you," he begins reluctantly. "It wasn't intentional; It's just so normal to me that I never really noticed it. Not until recently."

"Okay. Is it important?"

"Maybe." He finally meets her eye but it's apprehensive. "When would you say we talked about your lost purple sock?"

She frowns. "That was yesterday morning."

"For you." He exhales a heavy breath. "For me, it's been… Moments, maybe."

Her frown deepens and she leans forward in her chair. "Are you saying you're losing time?"

"I'm saying I experience it differently. I know it's been years because of the people, not specific events. I know we've known each other a couple of months because you have that little countdown for the holidays. But on my end, I can't track time properly. Sometimes I'm here and sometimes I'm just… Not."

She tries to think back to another time she'd seen him between yesterday and right now but comes up empty. "So you're saying, you went from the sock moment straight to… What, the bed?"

"I can't explain it. Ever since I found you, I don't just meander through this lack of life. But being here with you, I'm just so…"

"Tired?"

"I don't know. How does ‘tired’ feel?"

She tilts her head. "Heavy. Everything is heavy."

"Like my bones are experiencing gravity," he whispers. "I've never felt like this before."

"Do you feel better now than you did before you lay down?"

"A little. I thought it was just… But yeah, I do." He straightens up in his seat. "Did I just experience sleep?"

She smiles at the wonder filling his face. "I think so, Casper."

"I kept having these strange thoughts -"

"Dreams?" she guesses. He shrugs.

"There was this strange room I've never seen before, and machinery along the walls. And this light… It was so bright and it… It consumed me. I couldn't escape it. And the voices! Someone was yelling in my ear and… I was so scared, MJ."

"You don't have to be scared. Dreams can't hurt you." Her hand reaches for his of its own volition, the chill of his skin raising every hair on her arm.

"Do you have dreams like that?"

"Sometimes," she lies. "But I'm always okay when I wake up. Just like you were."

"Because you were here."

She bites her lip and takes a sudden interest in the carpet.

He turns his hand beneath hers to press their palms together, trailing his free hand over her skin's reaction to his touch. She watches her fingers twitch through his arm. "What does it feel like, when I touch you?"

"Cold," she says immediately. "But it's not unpleasant."

He stares at their hands and his thumb brushes over her pulse, sending a shudder down her spine. "I wish I could feel it."

"You can't feel it at all?"

"I can feel that your hand is there, but I can't feel how warm it is. It's like it's muted. I feel how you've disturbed the space but…" He doesn't finish his thought and she doesn't press, instead shifting her chair a little closer to him.

"Can I ask you something?" she says quietly, glancing up to see his eyes already fixed on her. He nods and she almost forgets it when he experiments with slotting his fingers into the space between hers. "Do you… Do you really think you're dead?”

"Before you? Absolutely. Now…" His hand squeezes hers for a fraction of a moment before he loses concentration, passing straight through her palm. He huffs out a mix of amusement and frustration and she watches him try again, letting him take control of her hand until, after several more tries, he is able to hold it tight enough to chill her bones. "Do you think I'm dead?"

She smiles, but it doesn't reach her eyes. "I don't think the dead are supposed to dream."

"Maybe I'm just special."

"The dead don't breathe, either." The smile slips away and she makes sure to hold his gaze before continuing. "I don't know what you are, ghost boy, but I do know one thing; you are more alive than anyone I've ever met."

He chuckles softly, laughing a little harder when she twists her face in displeasure at her own words. She swats at his shoulder with a roll of her eyes, but is interrupted by a yawn that scrunches up her nose.

"Looks like it's your turn to dream," he says with a grin, and her hand falls with a thud into her lap as he flits over to the other side of the room. "Goodnight, MJ."

She tugs back the covers and slips beneath them, tugging them up to her nose to mask the morphing of her lips when she sees him waving dorkily.

"Goodnight, Casper."

* * *

“Oh good! You’re awake.” He grins from his favourite spot, upside down and laying out the nesting dolls again.

“Of course I’m awake.” She leans back in her chair and watches him pause when the last doll is empty. “You’ve been gone for three days.”

“Have I?” he says nonchalantly, but his hand slips through the shelf and he flickers over to her bed, staring at the space she’d taken up when he was last here.

He’s never been away for so long, and after his confession the other night it concerns her. She’d almost come to the conclusion that whatever reason he exists in the first place had been fixed somehow and he wouldn’t be returning. The thought of her ghost abandoning her had been a hard one to process and now that he’s here beside her again, she’s more relieved that she wants to admit.

Besides, with her midterms now over, she’s had a large amount of free time in which to mull over his situation. Having already come to the conclusion that he’s not, at the very least, what fits the dictionary definition of a ghost, she’s stuck on what to classify him as. Everything she’s read doesn’t quite check all the boxes and the more she reads, the further she strays into the never ending land of conspiracy theories. While this has always intrigued her, trying to apply it to this impossible boy doesn’t feel right.

It’s the dream that’s perplexing her. Based on the little there is to know about him, he has no prior experiences with such trauma and, considering she’s basically been in charge of the media he consumes, knows he hasn’t watched anything close to that. So where has this imagery come from? The most obvious answer has to be a suppressed memory from his previous life - but that doesn’t explain why he can’t recall something as simple as his own name. Something about the dream is grating against her ability to focus on anything else, and his disappearance has only solidified her desire to find out more. 

Also, there’s the issue of his sudden ability to sleep. If it’s really been four years on this side, surely enough time has passed on his side to require sleep there. Could his existence really have only used up the equivalent of a single day? She thinks over all the interaction she’s had with him, tries to estimate how long they must have spent together. It has to be more than just 24 hours. There’s no way their friendship can amount to less than that.

“Taking the fact I can see you out of the equation, would you say you’ve spent more time with me than any of the previous tenants of this room?”

He noticeably stiffens, careful to keep his back to her as he returns to her shelf and tugs at one of the books. “I would say that’s a… reasonable assumption,” he replies slowly.

“How much more time? If you were to compare.”

“I don’t know.” He opens the book to a random page and buries his nose in it, his hair falling forward to hide the last of his face.

“You must have  _ some _ idea. How well did you get to know the others?”

“It’s hard to know someone when you can’t communicate,” he points out. She just rolls her eyes.

“You can learn plenty through just observation.”

The book tumbles from his hands and he appears again on her bed, lying down on his back. “I didn’t like to ‘observe’ them. It’s weird, seeing what people get up to when they think no one can see them. It’s an invasion of privacy.”

“You never seem to have a problem invading  _ my _ privacy.”

“You know I’m here. Coming to see you is like hanging out with a friend.”

She purses her lips against a smile and tries to keep her mind focused. “So the answer is…”

He sighs loudly. “I’m here a lot more now, yes.”

“Because of me.”

“Because of you.”

It’s not a clarification she needs but she’d asked anyway. It’s also why she says, “Because you finally have someone to talk to.”

“At first, yes.”

“And now?”

He sits up and watches her cautiously. “Well, we’re friends now, right?”

She smiles. “Yeah, weirdo, we’re friends.”

"Good." Relaxing back on the heels of his hands, he clicks his tongue and nods to himself. "Does that answer your question?"

"Yes, thank you," she says, distracted by turning the page of her notebook to a fresh page, pulling a pen from her hair. "You've been very helpful."

* * *

For two weeks, she spends every free second she has doing one of two things -

The first is scrolling through every photo she can find of missing persons from the tristate area. It is long and exhaustive and luckless. When she finishes that, she rifles through the obituaries. Most don't have photos and trying to match names to social media tributes becomes inane and impossible. The ones that do have photos look nothing like the boy haunting her dorm room.

It's difficult work. She tries not to go any longer than an hour at a time.

The other thing she does is wander the streets of Queens. She's still puzzling over the places he can go and this is the only other one they know about, and she gravitates here after classes without knowing the exact reason why. The area is nothing special in every other way, but she's almost certain she's missing something - she just doesn't understand what.

She's staring up at the building in the middle of some light rain when a familiar face strolls towards her spot on the other side of the street, elbow deep in his backpack as he searches for something.

Looking around for somewhere to hide, she takes a second too long and comes almost toe to toe with the very man who'd let her into the building a few weeks before. He apologises and goes to move around her when he does a double take, recognition flooding his face.

"Hey, aren't you the photographer lady?"

"Uh… Yeah. Yeah, that's me. Hi."

His eyes flicker down to the notable lack of camera around her neck. "Did you not get everything you were looking for or…?"

The lie lodges in her throat, her body's visceral reaction to anything but the truth falling from her lips. Instead, she takes a moment to contemplate her options before deciding, fuck it, since sane tactics haven't gotten them very far, she might as well ask.

"Actually, I kinda deceived you last time," she confesses, scratching at a patch of dry skin on her thumb. "See, I'm looking for someone. I got some information that led me here but it's probably been a few years. Maybe you could help me out? Do you have any neighbours that have been in the area for that long?"

The man looks guarded but doesn't immediately bail on her, so she considers that a win. "I've actually lived here most of my life, so I can probably help out to some degree. Who are you looking for?"

She resists the urge to roll her eyes. How is he to know that's the one thing she's trying to find out?

"Okay so, the issue is… I don't know his name?" He chews on his lip and she presses on. "He might have passed away, or maybe he's missing. He's young though. Dark hair, brown eyes, more ridiculous than the average young adult. Is there anyone from your building that fits that description?"

"Not from my building, no," he says, but he's suddenly pale and a little clammy and avoiding her gaze. A terrible liar, for sure; but why? What reason could he have to lie?

"What about a different building?" she says slowly when he continues to flounder.

"Uh… Wow. Another building. Nope. Don't really know anyone from the other buildings." He scratches his cheek and makes a show of glancing at his decidedly watch-less wrist. "Is that the time? I'm so sorry, I gotta go, have to get to my dinner plans -"

"It's four o'clock."

"- Early dinner plans. You know grandmas! They eat so early." He takes a few steps back and chuckles nervously. "Okay well, nice seeing you again!"

She lets him go - what is she to do? She's just a random girl looking for information on a guy she can't possibly know - but makes a note of his face. Somehow, she knows this isn't the last time she'll see him.

* * *

Three days after her run-in with Mr. Bad Liar, she comes home to a truly distressing sight.

The ghost is  _ excited _ .

"MJ!" He pops into view the moment she crosses the threshold, his cold hands gripping her shoulders as he bounces up and down. "MJ! Something's different!"

"Woah! Cool it, Casper!" She drops her backpack and shepherds him further into the room so she can close the door. "Take three deep breaths and start at the beginning."

"The other room I can visit - I dropped by earlier and someone was  _ there _ . He had this thing - I don't know what it's called - but he took something down and there's a window! Some picture was blocking it so I've never been able to look out but this guy took it down and now I can see!"

"There was a picture blocking the window? Why would someone do that?" 

The puzzle piece rotates in her mind, trying to find the way it fits.

"I don't know, but that's not the point. I looked out of the window! And guess what I saw?"

Something clicks. Michelle smirks. "Let me guess. The Unisphere."

"Yeah! Wait, how did you know?"

"The picture - was it red? Cartoonish?" He nods and the smirk becomes a grin. "Guess where else I've seen a picture just like that?"

* * *

The notebook steadily fills up with all of her thoughts and questions, but nothing quite matches the night she breaks into the crime scene.

Despite the amount of time that has passed, the site has been as perfectly preserved as a burnt out building can get. It's eerily silent inside in comparison to the city noise that echoes around the docks, and the thick layer of soot makes her lungs constrict. Strange gaps stand in stark contrast to the wreckage, like things have been carefully removed around the edges of the room. In its centre sits a hexagonal crater, large enough to fit her entire dorm room.

She picks her way carefully around the space with only her phone’s light to guide her, trying not to disturb anything. The last thing she needs is a bunch of people in fancy suits getting uppity over some casual trespassing.

She's about to give up when something crunches beneath her foot.

Crouching down to check, she picks up the offending object with that sense of foreboding that’s been following her since meeting the boy trapped in her room. 

“Holy shit.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Holy shit, indeed. 
> 
> Thoughts? Theories? Let me know!


	3. there’s a chain reaction in your heart

She returns to her room at 4am to find him pacing the ceiling, lost in thought.

“What kind of time do you call this?” he says in exasperation, before breaking into a grin. “It’s funny because I don’t actually know.”

Michelle just stares. The only thing she can think is the same thought she’s had the entire journey home: _Wh_ _ at. The. Fuck? _

He must register her silent freak out because he appears on top of her comforter with a thump. “Okay, bad time for a joke. What’s wrong?”

“There’s something we need to talk about.”

He looks up at her with a grim smile. “It’s okay, you don’t need to say it. I already know.”

“You… You do? How?”

“I figured it out.” He sighs, slouching back against the wall. “You’ve been around less and then when you are, you always insist on putting something on instead of talking and -“

“Oh my  _ God,  _ I've let you watch too many romcoms. You’re officially cut off.” She wavers before settling into the space beside him, making sure to face him properly.

“What is it, then?”

“I…” 

Her mouth struggles to form the words, opening and closing like her childhood pet, Guppy. She doesn’t know how to approach this properly - there’s no book on how to tackle difficult topics with the ghost you’ve befriended - so she takes a breath. How would she like to be treated in this instance?

The answer is, as always, knowing the truth. There’s no stumbling around this fact, no way to lessen the blow. 

He deserves her best, after everything he’s gone through. 

“I know who you are.”

His eyes are wide and open, braced for whatever has her so on edge. “Seriously? Are you sure?”

“I had a theory - a stupid theory - but it was the only thing that made sense and then… I was, like, 67% sure today. But then I found this...”

She takes his hand and presses something into it, and when he looks she sees the moment he understands; there in his palm sits the last figure from her nesting dolls, the exact one that’s been missing for weeks.

His eyes flicker to her empty shelf. “Where did you find it?”

“It was at an old crime scene.” She covers the doll with her hand, holding his own tightly as she finally speaks what she hasn’t even been able to let escape the confines of her mind. "I think… I think you were Spiderman."

Silence, and then;

He gasps.

He nods.

He says, “I don’t know what that is.”

She can’t help the amused huff that escapes her. His amnesiac tendencies are usually perplexing and irritating, but right now, his lack of knowledge on the masked vigilante - that he might have actually been - is hilarious.

It’s also ridiculous. She grew up on stories of his heroics, and now she might be staring at his real face after months of friendship.

“Spider-Man was a superhero - like Black Panther, or Captain Marvel, from the special we watched last month, remember? No one knew who he was, but he looked after the city.” She chews on her lip as she contemplates her next words. "Five years ago, Spiderman was last seen entering a building down by the docks. No one knows what happened - it's so big a mystery that there's at least a dozen documentaries on it - but about a week after he went missing, the building mysteriously caught fire."

“You mean... The warehouse?” he whispers.

“I went there, Casper. That’s where I’ve been tonight.” She retracts her hand. “It’s where I found this.”

He holds the doll up gingerly, studying it from all angles. Some of the red paint of its hood has been scratched but the tiny face is unblemished, the delicate brushwork still effortlessly beautiful fifty years later. 

“Are you sure this is yours? Yes, it looks like -“

“Not just looks like. It  _ is _ mine. My grandma was given these dolls as a present from a close friend. Hand painted. One of a kind.”

He shudders out a breath, meeting her eye for just a second before diverting it somewhere else. “I didn’t think I could transport things.”

“You kept staring at this one. Maybe you got attached.”

“I didn’t like that it was empty,” he says quietly, curling his fist around the doll. She can still make out some of the details through his translucent skin. “You really think I’m this… This Spidey guy?”

“There’s too many coincidences. Your places include the building he disappeared from and two different spots in Queens - exactly where many people theorised he was based. Maybe that room you kept seeing was your home, or a - a base of operations. And I always put your aversion to gravity down to whatever state you’re suspended in; but what if it’s because you  had _ powers _ ? Spiderman was strong and fast and had these crazy instincts and maybe that’s why you’re still here, surviving somehow, an anomaly clinging to an echo of life.”

She is startled from her impassioned speech by a sniff, causing her pacing to come to an abrupt stop. She sits beside him, holding her hand palm side up in the space between. His shoulder brushes hers as he interlocks their fingers, his grip firm and sure. 

When he finally looks up at her, his eyes are wet. “Tell me what happened to him.”

She squeezes his hand, trying to show him that she’s here, ready to be whatever he needs her to be. He returns the gesture, her fingers cooling quickly in his atmosphere, the cold seeping through her veins to calm the blush that threatens to tint her cheeks as she spends a moment too long staring at the place they’re joined.

"The Avengers tried looking for a really long time, but all the leads went cold - most of the world has assumed he -  _ you _ \- died, but there's a little group in the city that are still fighting for you. They started putting up these posters of Spiderman's mask as a symbol, to remind the city. They look a lot like the picture you saw removed from the window.”

He looks pained, shaking his head. "I don't know, MJ, this seems really far-fetched…"

"I'd agree with you, but I've been sharing my room with a ghost for three months." 

He huffs in amusement and knocks her arm gently. At least he’s still got his sense of humour. She hasn’t broken him too badly yet. 

“I know it sounds crazy,” she whispers, ”But I feel it in my gut that this is the right path.”

“I trust you, I do. It’s just… this is a lot. What you’re saying makes sense but I don’t feel anything about it. I thought, maybe, if there was a day we actually managed this, that I’d feel it in my gut, too, but I’m… I’m empty. Like this is one of those sleep-thoughts and I’m going to wake up to your face again and you won’t be looking at me like you are now.”

“How am I looking at you now?”

“You look… hopeful. Determined. Like you’ve really saved me and this thing we have is coming to an end.”

“Casper.” She tilts up his chin with two fingers so he’s looking at her. A gooey smile softens the features of her face. “No matter what, we will always be friends. Whether this pans out or not; whether you get to be anything else but this or not; you are my friend, and I am yours.”

“Promise?”

“Of course.” 

She tightens her grip on his hand like the sealing of a vow and he nods as the cogs of his mind whir, leaning into her side. 

“What now?” he asks into the soft silence surrounding them. 

”I dig deeper. I need hard evidence before I can approach the relevant parties. First step happens tomorrow; I reached out to the group still looking for you and I'm meeting with their leader. Someone called Ned Leeds - do you recognise the name at all?”

He shakes his head. “I’m sorry.”

“It’s okay,” she assures him. “This is good, Casper. This is  _ progress _ . You should be happy.”

"I am, MJ; truly. And I’m so grateful. I just can’t help but wonder… Is all this effort really worth it?"

"If it saves you? Without question."

They lock eyes for a long moment, something undefinable passing between them. It feels like the sun on her skin and the perfect ratio of toppings to ice cream and the second to last page of a good book. It’s the softness of her skin after her favourite moisturiser. It's as gentle as the brush of his hand against hers, her breath lost somewhere between her confession and the cool slide of his fingers as he shifts them between her own.

“I should get some sleep,” she murmurs. “I’ve, uh… I’ve got an early class before the meeting.”

“Sure, yeah, of course. I should go.” He blips to the other side of the room, gingerly placing the nesting doll where it belongs. Somehow her hand feels colder without him. 

“You don’t have to.” It rips from her throat before she can even start the thought and she almost slaps a hand over her mouth. Instead she fists the comforter and listens to more words tumble into the tension between them. “I mean, it was your room first. And it’s not like you haven’t been here while I slept before. I’d rather you were here than loitering on that rooftop or in those empty rooms or… not here at all, I guess. That’s probably what you’d rather do; skip to the good bits. Sleeping is pretty boring.”

“I don’t think anything you do could ever be classified as boring,” he says with a lopsided smile. “Are you asking me to sleep over?”

She hesitates. “It would appear so.”

“How would your Mom feel about a boy staying over?” He gasps dramatically. “With the door closed as well!”

She glares as he begins to laugh and busies herself toeing off her shoes and climbing under the sheets. “I think she’d be mostly concerned that her daughter was talking to thin air.”

“Maybe she’d - Wait, what are you doing?”

Michelle stops shimmying to fix him with a firm look. “I’m not sleeping in my jeans. I’m also too tired to get changed in the bathrooms. Chuck me the shorts on the dresser.”

Turning his back with a suspicious tint to his cheeks, he follows her orders and waits for her to stop shuffling around before facing her again, this time scratching his neck. “I don’t really know what to do now.”

“I can put something on for you to watch. How far did you get into Legally Blonde 2?”

But he’s already shaking his head, suppressing a yawn. “I think I might try to sleep, as well. I feel heavy again. Ooh! Maybe I can hang from the ceiling like a bat!”

Michelle peaks at him through the dimmed light, watching him appear on the ceiling above her as he wraps his arms around himself, eyes squeezed shut. ”Wrong superhero. Don’t be stupid. You’re not sleeping on the ceiling.”

“It’s surprisingly comfortable. Maybe you should join me.”

“Maybe  _ you _ should join  _ me _ .”

Dear  _ God _ , does she need an after-midnight filter for her mouth.

They just stare at each other for far too long but this time she feels awkward; sticky, perhaps, like the humidity of the room suddenly quadrupled. His eyes gleam with a light that doesn’t come from her lamp and she feels them burrow into her until her skin is too tight to contain her thunderous heart. 

_ Look away, _ she wants to plead.  _ I can’t remember how to exhale _ . 

He flickers. She breathes. 

“I’m sorry, that was -“

“Okay.”

“Okay?” She grips the sheets a little closer to her chin. “A-Are you sure?”

“Are  _ you  _ sure?”

She narrows her gaze, the challenge blazing through her veins despite her apprehension. “I asked, didn’t I?”

He lets go of the ceiling and appears at the side of her bed, nudging the lump her hip makes beneath the duvet with a finger. “Shove over then.”

In a mild panic, she cocoons herself so he can’t find the corner. “I meant the other end of the bed.”

“Like a dog?”

“You were a bat before and had no issue with it. Probably a spider before  _ that _ .”

“MJ,” he whines.

“This bed is tiny! We can’t fit two of us up here!”

He rolls his eyes and disappears. When the mattress depresses behind her she squeaks and rolls to see him lounging in the gap there, one hand behind his head as he studies the spot he’d once taken up. “See? We fit just fine.”

“You’re insufferable.” She makes a pointed effort to involve as much elbow as possible as she turns her body properly to face him, a feat he pays no mind as she passes straight through him each time.

“Why are you freaking out about this when you asked me? Friends can sleep together. It’s a thing.”

Her whole body tenses. Does he know what he just implied? Did he mean to make her hair stand on end? Does he even know what an innuendo is?

“It’s fine,” she says stiffly, rubbing her tired eyes. “Just go to sleep.”

He sighs, wriggling slightly until he’s comfortable. Despite the comforter as a barrier, she can still feel the chill of his body where it presses against hers, a hard line from her chest to her calf. Reaching behind her to turn off the light, the darkness brings a tentative silence that she’s in no rush to disrupt. The sound of his lungs filling with air is a strange comfort and with a bravery bolstered by the first hints of a new day, she inches her head closer to better hear it. 

Time expands in front of them. His arm twitches, grazing the tip of her nose. 

Her blinks devolve into something more necessary. Her ghost twists to face her. His exhale wafts over the loose strands of hair by her temple. 

“MJ…” he begins in a whisper. Something cold hovers above her arm. 

“Shh,” she replies, eyes slipping closed. A fingertip trails from her sleeve to her wrist, sending a shiver down her spine. It happens again and she sighs. It happens again and this time it brings a friend. 

She drifts to sleep with the feather-soft caress of the boy she tries hard not to curl around, barely noticing the grip that betrays her at the last moment to pull him ever closer.

* * *

Michelle drops the overflowing notebook onto the tabletop with a definitive  _ bang. _

“Hello again, Ned Leeds.”

Sliding into the chair opposite, Michelle considers the young man in front of her - he looks just as startled as he had a few days ago, babbling about dinner plans before running away. He’s got a laptop open in front of him, a cooling latte cradled in one hand and his phone in the other, frozen in place from reading her last message.

“You? I don’t understand.”

“Actually, it’s Michelle.” She holds her hand out towards him. “I think we both need to start over.”

He shakes her hand with a sweaty palm. “Ned.”

She situates herself more comfortably and toys with the elastic holding her notebook closed. “You know already that I’m looking for someone, and this is the second time you’ve come up in my search.”

“I don’t know who Spiderman is,” he says in a rush of words. “Who are you really? A journalist? An investigator of some kind?”

“I’m a freshman at Columbia, staying in Furnald Hall.” She purses her lips, watching him twitch and flounder. “You just flinched. Why did you flinch?”

“I didn’t  _ flinch. _ I was just -“

“Did you know someone who stayed there?” She leans forward. “This is important, Ned. If you knew someone, you need to tell me.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“I’m talking about life or death.” 

He pales. It’s strange to see him so affected by just a few words; before he’d been suspiciously shifty but now he’s desperate - a panic not too dissimilar to her own. 

She runs her hand through her hair. “You’re not just in charge of the Spider-Man Lives campaign, are you? You  _ knew  _ him.”

Could he be family? A brother, perhaps? A cousin? 

“I’m just a  _ fan - _ “

A partner, maybe?

“How old are you, Ned?”

He hesitates. “23.”

“Five years… You’d have been 18.”

“No, I -“

A friend? Maybe even -

“ _Oh._ I see.” She leans over to pat his hand. “There’s something I need to show you.”

* * *

The walk from the coffee shop to her dorm is short in distance but long in silence.

She doesn't know what to say that will make any of this easier to take in. He doesn't know what to say to a girl who has surely figured him out.

Every step makes Ned a little more wound up, like he's uneasy in his decision to follow her. Any more space between them and he'd be in the middle of the road, but she suspects the allure of the knowledge she is keeping from him is what drives him forward. At least, she hopes it is knowledge. There is too much coincidence for this to not go the way she hopes.

They stop outside of Furnald Hall. Ned stares up at it with something gleaming in his eyes.

"Who are you?" he asks, voice cracking, as he stares up to a familiar window. 

"I'm nobody. Just someone observant enough to maybe solve the puzzle she was supposed to."

She leads him into the building by tapping the crook of his elbow. Ned stumbles after her with that sad look in his eyes that he's had since she mentioned the college.

Michelle leads the way down the corridor but it is Ned who stops first at the door. She doesn't comment, just pulls out her key and turns it in the lock. When the door swings open, she walks inside to find her ghost exactly where she'd left him; staring at the bookshelf with that little crease in the middle of his forehead.

"Casper," she whispers, "We have visitors."

His head almost spins a full circle, he turns to her so fast. "Really? Who is it?"

She nods her head back to the man unable to cross the threshold. Her ghost gasps and appears right in front of him, leaning in so close his nose almost brushes Ned's ear.

"You can come in. It's okay." She beckons Ned forward and gestures to her chair. "You're going to want to sit down."

Ned sighs before trudging into the room, following her instructions. His eyes bounce around the space with a critical eye, catching on objects in ways she can’t understand, taking in her cluttered bookshelf and hastily made bed. She can’t help but wonder what it is he sees between the trinkets collected over a short life. What scraps is he collecting on the kind of person she is? What information is being taught simply by observing her safe space?

Her ghost pops into the space beside her, leaning against her shoulder with his elbow. "So, what now?"

She clicks her tongue in thought as she watches Ned drag the armchair half a foot to the right before taking an uneasy seat. "Do you feel anything?"

He shakes his head as Ned says, "Am I supposed to feel anything?"

"I wasn't talking to you." She glances between the two, Casper staring thoughtfully at the print of Darth Vader's mask on their visitor's face. 

Her ghost has always been a fan of the dorky stuff she puts on to stop his incessant ramblings when she’s trying to study. She can see them being a good pair, overall. 

She forces her shoulders to relax, to try and form the expression her mom uses when she has difficult news to break, like when they had to move, or her Grandma was in the hospital. The one that tries to offer some level of comfort without making you feel like a small child. 

"I know this is going to sound crazy, but -"

"You see dead people?" Ned glances to the empty space she had directed her previous comment to. “You’re talking to a ghost, right?”

Michelle is finally the one stunned into silence - at least for a moment. "Uh, yeah. How did you -"

"The woman I let onto my roof, a place that's important to me, contacts me weeks later about Spiderman and then brings me  _ here _ …" The look in his eyes can only be described as haunted. "It's the most probable answer, considering what you've told me so far."

She shifts her gaze to her ghost who is already looking back. "Looks like you're not the only one capable of jumping to conclusions."

Michelle nudges him in the ribs so he slips off her shoulders with a quiet grunt.

"I don't know  _ why _ but… I think he’s the guy you've been looking for.

"Does he know me?" the boy asks eagerly, the cold of his hands seeping through the sleeve of her shirt as he clings to her arm. "Maybe he has a photo."

"He wants to know if you have a photo. For comparison."

Ned looks on edge, glancing around the room. "What makes you think I have a photo of Spiderman's real identity? No one knows that. Don’t be ridicu-"

"Give it up, nerd. It was weak then and it's weak now.” Michelle steps closer, hoping her expression is sympathetic as she tries to think of how to explain. “I'm not about to blab it to the press, Ned. I have no interest in exposing the secrets of a dead superhero, of putting the people he loved in that kind of danger. It's only so I can check we're on the right track."

Ned pulls out his phone with a long sigh, fingers tapping against the screen until he turns it to show Michelle. She holds his trembling hand still and gasps.

In the photo Ned looks younger, maybe still in high school, but he looks  _ happy _ , grinning widely with his arm around what is unmistakably the boy haunting her dorm room, only he's solid and real and laughing, lounging back against the striking ruins of a blue sofa.

"Oh my God," she whispers.

"Is that what I look like?" the ghost asks.

Ned screams.

"What the fuck?"

"Wait, what -"

"It's you… It's really you!"

Michelle yelps as a sob rips from Ned's chest and he barges past her, reaching towards the stunned boy behind her. He holds out his hand and the ghost stares in horror as his fist engages in a dorky handshake before Ned wraps his arms tightly around his lost friend.

"You can see him?" she asks as the boy says, "You can see me?"

"I just… She touched me and then… and then you  _ appeared _ . I can't believe you're here, Peter, after all this time -"

The ghost perks up and withdraws from the hug with a quick disappearing act, reappearing on the ceiling with a gawking mouth. "Peter? Is that my name?"

"Yeah." Ned nods, not at all phased by the sudden lack of person in his arms, but then his smile falls. "You don't remember?"

He shrugs. "I don't remember anything before this."

Ned clears his throat, rolls back his shoulders, and grimaces. "That's okay. As your best friend, I'm probably the most qualified to fill in the blanks."

"Best friend? I have a best friend?" Her ghost's face softens even further. "That's so cool!"

Ned turns to Michelle, who is watching the exchange with a strange well of emotion in her throat. "Thank you, Michelle. You have no idea how much this means to me."

"Don't thank me yet," she says, taking an uneasy step closer to the reunion. "This was the easy bit."

"We have time for that later." Ned waves his hand at her dismissively, staring up at his friend in awe. "First thing's first… Tell me everything that happened to get here."

Michelle sighs, falling onto her mattress heavily as she rubs her temple against the headache beginning to bloom. She regales him with the tale of their journey, skipping over the boring bits and the moments of crippling self-doubt. Ned stares at them in wonder, drinking in every word.

Now, as she looks back, she can't help but smile as she realises all they have accomplished in just a couple of months; how a college freshman solved the mystery of who lies behind the mask with nothing but an amnesiac and some conveniently placed clues.

"How did you find out about my group?" Ned asks as she finishes her story.

"Casper mentioned a poster blocking the window of one of his places. I'd seen one before, in a window of your building, and there's not that many of them around these days so I figured it was too much of a coincidence."

"The poster?" Ned scratches his head, leaning forward onto his knees in his new perch on her chair. "What does the room look like?"

Her ghost -  _ Peter _ \- disappears for a moment before turning up at her side. "Bigger than this room. It's empty now since that guy took everything away but -"

"Was this guy grumpy looking?"

"Sure, I guess."

Ned exhales heavily. "That was your bedroom."

"You know it?" Michelle's eyebrows rise in astonishment. "Just from that?"

"Of course I know it. As kids, I spent most of my time there. See, Peter and I, we were neighbours - he lived in the building next door, but we always hung out in his room or on my roof. We put the sofa up there ourselves when we were seniors in high school - well, I found it and Peter carried it." Ned smiles at his friend. "Guess that solves the mystery on why you can visit certain places."

"They were important to me." Peter looks around the room. "But why here?"

"Oh, that's an easy one." Michelle rolls her eyes. "Obviously, this was your dorm. Home away from home. Who knew you'd be such a fan of learning, Casper."

"Casper?" Ned laughs. "I get it. That's funny."

"She seems to think so." Peter flickers out of sight, doing his usual bounce-around of his favourite spots around the room. He settles into pacing the small amount of space left in the room.

"Okay, so you have your answers.” Michelle crosses her arms across her chest. “Now we want ours.”

Ned glances to the boy as he paces up the wall, phasing through her shelf without a shiver. “What do you want to know?”

“Everything,” he says from the ceiling. ”Tell me everything.”

"Okay, well… Your name is Peter. Peter Parker. You were - oh my God! May!" Ned slaps a hand over his eyes. "I can't believe I forgot May!"

"What's happening in May?" The boy -  _ Peter; _ that’s going to take some getting used to - asks in confusion.

"Not the month; the person. She's your Aunt. She's your family." 

“What about my parents?”

Ned hesitates, glancing at Michelle until she raises an eyebrow. “They died when you were little. It’s just you and Aunt May, now.”

“Oh.” Peter nods, an empty kind of sadness tugging at his lips. He appears in front of her bookshelf and tugs out a familiar book, stroking a translucent finger over the glossy cover. “I see.”

Michelle makes her way over to him, curious about what has always captured his attention there. Through his finger, she reads out, “Jack the Bodiless. Julian May.”

“I thought it was just the title, but… It was the first time I felt…”

She touches his hand, trying to convey what her words struggle to. “One more answer.”

“I just can’t believe this is all happening,” he confesses quietly, the echo of his breath surprisingly warm against her cheek. “I’ve spent years lost in this meaningless tide of _nothing_ and - and I meet you and -”

“That’s the thing,” Ned says from behind her shoulder. They both turn to see something new lighting up the dark shadows of his expression; it looks a lot like hope. “You may have spent five years doing nothing, but my team? We’ve been working on something.”

* * *

Michelle closes the door behind Ned and presses her forehead to the cool wood. Her vision swims with how tired she is; physically and mentally, after discussing everything Peter-related for hours on end. All she wants is to sleep for a hundred days, but behind her is an anxious boy too worked up on the day’s revelations to let her rest.

There will be more talking now, she’s sure.

As much as she wants to dissect everything, now is not the time she wants to do so. 

“So. I’m alive.”

She nods, nose grazing the door. 

“I’m not actually a ghost. I’m not dead.”

“You’re not dead.”

“And you knew.”

“We talked about this.” She turns around to face him, leaning against the door and scratching her head. “The dead don’t breathe. They don’t sleep or forget or move things or - or  _ anything _ . The dead are just that. _Dead._ And if ghosts really did exist, it wouldn’t make sense that I only ever saw you.”

“The dead don’t dream,” he murmurs, looking down at the little nesting doll that spends its life now cradled in his hands. Peter slumps in the middle of the room like all of his bones just disappeared. “I can’t believe that was a memory.”

“I can’t believe you thought you could take on all those evil scientists by yourself.” She tries to make it sound like a joke but it comes out flat, her brain still trying to reconcile the boy she has come to know with the picture Ned had painted of his best friend, the teenage vigilante. 

“MJ,” he begins, stepping towards her with purpose before shrinking back, chewing on his bottom lip. She wishes she could hear his thoughts, could check in on his processing of a whole identity and life that he doesn’t remember but that has been thrust upon him in one afternoon. He’s flickering and she knows, if she were to reach out and touch him, that her hand would pass straight through. “What if… Do you really think they can save me?”

“Now their work isn’t theoretical? Probably, yeah. You’ve got some of the best intellects in the world in your corner.”

He runs a hand through his hair before appearing on her bed, legs crossed with a glum expression. “And what happens… what happens after?”

Michelle takes a seat beside him, inhales a deep breath for both of them. “You go back to your life. Study, if you still want to. Help people cross the streets; stop a few criminals. Be with your Aunt and Ned and… Live. You get to live.”

“And you?” Peter’s suddenly looking at her and she almost chokes on what she sees there, not ready to process when it might mean. “What happens to you? To us?”

“I don’t know.” Peter flickers but stays in place. When he reaches for her hand, she lets him take it. “I don’t fit into your real life, Peter.”

“MJ, no -”

“There’s a good chance you won’t even remember me.” 

Peter flinches, squeezing her hand so tight he phases through it, leaving the doll behind in her palm. “Don’t say that. How could I ever forget you?”

“You probably thought the same before this happened to you, yet you forgot anyway.” She holds her hand out until he can focus on holding it again. “It’s okay, it’s not your fault. It’s a side effect of your circumstance, but once you leave this… This pocket dimension -”

“So don’t let me forget,” he implores, twisting to face her fully, cupping her warm cheeks with his icy fingers. “Make yourself fit into my life. I don’t have any interest in going back to it if you’re not going to be there.”

“Peter -”

“Michelle, I’m serious.” There’s a heat to his tone but his eyes are impossibly soft, captivating her with the strength of his gaze. “Promise me I won’t lose you.”

Heart pounding, she tries to find her way out of the labyrinth he has trapped her in, the answer just outside of her reach. Something in him is daring her to contradict him, to tell him he’s wrong about whatever lurks inside, something that’s been growing and blooming despite her resistance to nurture it.

“Y-You won’t,” she whispers. “You won’t lose me.”

It settles him but the lie leaves a sharp ache in her chest, worse than the certainty of how much it’ll hurt to let him go.

It’ll be okay though, she tells herself. Peter won’t have to forgive her; he won’t remember to. After all, he can’t miss what he doesn’t know he’s lost.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> BOOM. PLOT TWIST ON A PLOT TWIST.
> 
> I am loving everyone's reaction to this so far! And next week is the END I AM SO EXCITED! 
> 
> @mjonesing on Tumblr as always :)


	4. I let the scale tip and feel all of it

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I can't believe this fic is over! And you'll know everything now! Thank you so so much for your kind words, amazing theories and general screaming at this little mystery that apparently could.
> 
> For references, while I most definitely am forgetting some, you can thank Agents of SHIELD, Legally Blonde, Casper the Friendly Ghost, Sleeping At Last's Nine, and my crime-show obsessed brain, as well as my little team of cheerleaders who pushed me to get this done.
> 
> Thank you, and Happy Halloween!

Once the wheels are in motion for Peter’s return to the living, things move quickly. Ned takes leave from his fancy engineering job and spends most of his time in the warehouse, supervising the return of the complex machinery that blipped his best friend from existence in the first place. When he’s not there, he seems to enjoy turning up at Michelle’s dorm with dinner and a wide smile.

At first, she’s a little put out that Ned decides the place to rekindle his friendship is in her personal space when Peter can just as easily hang out on their rooftop with him, but she figures out pretty quickly that Peter must have spilled the beans on their discussion last week. Ned is comfortable in Peter’s presence but makes a conscious effort to include her in everything they get up to. He asks a lot of questions, trying to get her to open up, but every time she’s tempted by his kind eyes and genuine interest, she looks up and sees the moon’s glow through Peter’s face, and it quickly shuts her back down.

Peter talks a lot when Ned has left, updating her on the Save Peter Operation and how each person reacts to Ned’s seemingly one-sided conversations. She struggles to maintain her curiosity despite his casual name-drops of Bruce Banner and Shuri, of Wanda Maximoff doing strange things with her magic to something Peter calls a ‘quantum bridge’. She doesn’t entirely understand the science behind it, her scientific interests never stretching quite that far, but Peter assures her it’s very cool and that he can feel the shift, like a door is about to be opened.

“We actually figured most of this out a while ago,” Ned tells her one evening, flicking through photos of the site on his phone that she can barely pay attention to. “Once we determined the bad guys were trying to break through the fundamental laws of physics, trying to create something that existed outside of it, we started exploring the possibility of other dimensions. The ongoing issue was that, if Peter was still alive at all, we needed him in the room to be able to recreate the moment the machines overloaded and took everything within its vicinity. Until you, we couldn’t see him to know for sure.”

Michelle grimaces. “Glad I could be of use.”

“So what even happened to the bad guys?” Peter asks from the ceiling, legs crossed as he half-watches whatever show is still playing on her laptop with squinting eyes.

“Best guess? They were in the room when it happened. On the comms, it sounded like you caught them by surprise. Maybe your interruption is what led to them losing control.”

“So, they’re stuck, too?”

“Uh…” Ned glances at her quickly before returning to watching Peter. “No, we’re pretty sure they didn’t survive. Shuri thinks the only reason _you’ve_ survived this long is because of your altered genetics.”

“Awesome.” Peter appears in front of them, Michelle’s extended legs passing through his ankles. “Well, not for them, I guess.”

“You wouldn’t even be in this mess if you’d just listened to your team,” Michelle says with a huff, tucking her legs underneath her and holding her book a little closer to her face.

“Hey, I tried telling him that,” Ned says with his hands up, “And _this_ Peter gets that! I don’t know if he’ll be so agreeable when he’s back to normal, though.”

Michelle refuses to meet Peter’s eye, slouching further back. Ned’s words were only intended to be funny, but they snag on a fundamental truth; that the boy she knows is just an echo of a person, and she doesn’t really know him at all.

What will be left to salvage once he’s whole and realises she’s only a girl who pays attention?

“Maybe next time he’ll think twice before rushing in without backup,” Ned says with a wistful sigh. “And in his civilian clothes, no less.”

Peter shrugs. “Crime doesn’t wait for you to get dressed.”

Michelle stares without seeing at her page, but Ned just laughs.

“Believe it or not, that is _not_ the first time you’ve said that to me.”

* * *

The night before, Michelle is a mess.

She’s missing something, she’s sure. It tugs at the back of her brain, trying to lead her to the surely glaringly obvious hole in their plan.

Sitting still isn’t an option, so she tries to turn in early. When that fails, she’s up and pacing, hands trembling as she wrings them in a fit of nerves and dread. Ned had assured earlier that they were on track for a morning trial run and, if all goes well, Peter could be back as early as mid afternoon. 

“It’s going to be okay,” he’d promised her outside the dorm’s door, a comforting hand on her shoulder as she chewed on her depleted thumbnail. “Everything is going to work out just fine.”

Despite her very limited time with Ned, she trusts him to do this. He so clearly loves his best friend, and there’s no way he’d risk the one chance to bring him back by doing something he’s not completely confident in.

No, her concern lies somewhere else; with some _one_ else.

Peter isn’t around, hasn’t been since yesterday afternoon after his friend had left. It’s not unusual and she’s spent most of her day trying to assure herself that he’s probably on the roof, or watching the developments in the warehouse. He doesn’t usually go this long without checking in, but it’s not unfounded; his occasional loss of time is not something he can help, and all that matters is he reappears so the plan can be executed.

As though her tumbling thoughts have summoned him, Peter appears in front of her, and she suddenly realises exactly what it is she’s been missing.

Peter’s panting and desperate, more translucent than she’s ever seen him, eyes wild as he looks around the room like she isn’t right there, just three feet away.

“MJ?!” He turns on the spot, his flickering leaving him only half here. “MJ, help me, please!”

“Peter? Peter, I’m here! Can you hear me?”

His eyes meet hers for a second before he’s looking down at his hands as they pass right through, trying to vain to reach for her. “I’m - I’m fading, MJ. I don’t know what to do.”

He keeps trying to reach for her to no avail, and that echo of dread is at full force now as she stumbles for her phone on the other side of her room.

She can’t even feel him passing through her now, the comfort of his chill replaced by the hot blaze of terror.

“It’s okay,” she tries to tell him, but he’s choking on a sob like he can’t hear her at all. She focuses on her task, her quivering fingers barely managing to pull up the contact.

He picks up after a few rings with a cheery, “Hey, MJ!”

“Ned, Peter’s disappearing. I don’t - Fuck, I can’t believe I didn’t notice before, but he’s been fading for a while and - We’re out of time, Ned.”

She hears his breathing hitch before he manages to say, “We haven’t run our tests yet, we don’t even know -”

“Peter doesn’t have that long!” She tugs at her hair, turning to find him, barely making out the outlines of his features. “I don’t even - He’s got moments, Ned. We have to do this now.”

“Okay, okay.” Ned hiccups over the emotion in his voice and she hears the clattering of keys followed by frenzied footsteps. “I’ll gather everyone I can but, MJ, he has to be in that room. You have to find a way to get him there.”

MJ drops the phone without another word, taking the five steps back to Peter’s side. “Can you hear me? Peter! Please, I need you to hear me.”

Peter’s faded brown eyes manage to focus on her. “MJ?”

“Go to the warehouse. Ned is - You have to go to the warehouse.” She reaches for him without thinking, hands falling uselessly when she is met with nothing but air. “Go now, please!”

“Will you be there?” He wipes at tears she can no longer see and her heart _hurts_ , the overwhelming odds against them surging through her. “I’m scared, MJ. I need you -”

“I’m on my way,” she promises, holding his gaze a moment longer before grabbing her shoes and her coat. “I’ll meet you there, just go, please!”

Michelle turns back around but he’s gone.

 _No tears yet,_ she promises herself as she rushes into the night; _it’s not over yet._

* * *

Crashing through the doors of the warehouse, Michelle is met by four pairs of eyes, only one of whom she cares to recognise. She looks wildly around the space for a fifth, rushing mindlessly around the huge obstruction that sits in the hexagonal space she’d observed before, but there’s no ghost here; she bites her lip and heads straight to Ned instead, who’s twisting a piece of paper so tightly in his hands that its sharp enough to inflict damage.

“You can’t see him either?” Ned asks grimly.

“I told him; he _heard_ me. I promised I’d…” Her exhale trembles with the force of keeping her emotions at bay. “It takes him a while sometimes, and he’s been losing time so… He’ll be here. He has to be here.”

Ruby coloured energy begins to flow from the other side of the room, building and rippling inside what must be the quantum bridge with the help of Wanda Maximoff. Bruce Banner paces in front of a cluster of machinery, flicking switches and glancing up to the bridge before repeating the process with another. Shuri taps away in another corner, her eyes occasionally falling on Michelle as she begins pacing once more.

Ned thrusts a tablet into her hands on the next pass. “It’s ready. We just need confirmation he’s here.”

Michelle looks around the room, still unable to find him. 

“Ned, what if -”

“Don’t say it. We’re not there, yet.”

But she can’t help herself thinking it either way; what if he’s already gone?

And if he’s gone, then how is any of this even real?

It’s only been a few months, but she already can’t imagine her life without him; doesn’t _want_ to imagine it. Peter has come to mean so much to her, more than she ever knew until faced with the possibility of him ceasing to exist. She curls in on herself with the pain of it, wrapping her coat further around her body like it’ll stave off the ice that curdles in her blood.

Deep in her pocket, her hand hits something small and round.

“Oh.”

Michelle whirs around to Ned, holding up the tablet. “You said it’s ready, yeah?”

“Sure, it’s just -”

“Turn it on.”

“We don’t even know if he’s here!” Ned rushes after her as she runs to the collection of superheroes and scientists.

“Turn it on!” she orders firmly.

“Miss,” Bruce says uncertainly, “It’s not -”

“Don’t tell me it’s not safe! Just turn it on!”

“We need to do this remotely so no one else gets pulled in,” Bruce continues, but then Shuri is closing in with a determined set to her jaw.

Michelle nods in return to her silent acceptance. “I only need a few seconds.”

“MJ, please, think about this -”

Shuri’s hand slams down on a button before Ned can finish his plea, energy flooding the room. They cover their eyes against the bright light that threatens to blind them all but Michelle recovers quickly, determination pushing her through the pressure that threatens to overwhelm them.

Her arm snaps forward with all the strength she can muster, and a tiny little nesting doll flies through the air and directly into the source of the light.

“Power down!” Ned yells, and with Shuri’s release of the button, the energy folds in on itself, the room returning to normal.

“Are you insane?!” Ned yells as everyone checks themselves over. “You could have killed everyone in this room!”

“But I _didn’t_!”

“What were you even doing?!”

“Sending a signal,” she says like it’s obvious; which it is, surely. “That or significantly decreasing the worth of an antique.”

Ned just stares at her, flummoxed and possibly concerned for her mental state.

“Just because we can’t see him doesn’t mean he’s not _here_. You couldn’t see him before but that didn’t mean he was gone, just that your brain couldn’t process the image of him. I don’t know why I could see him, but even though I can’t now, it doesn’t mean he’s gone forever.” Something a lot like hope blooms in her chest, her own words convincing herself of her own convictions. “He’s scared, Ned; he needs to know that we’re waiting for him. I - I promised him I’d be here.”

Ned narrows his gaze, watching her as she catches her breath against the adrenaline. “Okay,” he says eventually, his need to believe - to finish what he’s spent years trying to achieve - breaking through his distrust. “Let’s clear out and get started.”

The group rush to prepare everything - properly, this time, now Michelle has given her unexpected signal - but she stands quietly, watching the fluctuating waves of Wanda’s energy as they wait to be manipulated into a doorway to another dimension. Not a thought she ever expected to think, but it’s better than the alternative that keeps trying to muscle its way into her head.

What if she’s wrong?

She shakes it off, taking a calming breath. They can do this; they’re too far gone to fail now.

“You can do this, Casper,” she whispers, “Hold on a little longer for us, okay?”

A hand curls around her wrist. “We’re ready,” Shuri tells her softly. “Time to go.”

Michelle nods and allows herself to be led out of the room, taking one last lingering look at the bridge before the heavy doors close behind her.

Only Wanda remains, a move Ned assures her is planned; the energy is mostly hers so her body can readily adapt to it, and it means they can work through any issues that crop up a little easier.

Bruce holds out a tablet with a complex array of digitized switches and buttons. “Care to do the honours?”

“Hell no.” She shakes her head and crosses her arms. “If anyone deserves to press that button, it’s Ned.”

“We wouldn’t be here without you,” Ned reminds her, but he takes the tablet and inhales deeply, centering himself. “You ready?”

“Absolutely. Let's bring our boy home.”

This time they’re ready for the energy flare, the whole room ablaze with a scarlet light. Wanda is barely visible on the outskirts, her hands trembling as she tries to control it, to morph it into what they need. Michelle’s pressed against the glass, squinting through the blinding brightness to try and make out the bridge, searching for any sign of success.

“Come on, Peter,” Ned says quietly from beside her, searching just as desperately. “One last miracle.”

“Something’s happening!” Shuri says excitedly, but she doesn’t need to.

Michelle can see it.

It’s barely anything, a spec of darkness in the overwhelming light. But the more she looks, the more it grows, the more her heart takes flight as it begins to take shape, getting closer and closer until she can see legs and arms and hands and -

Wanda cries out, falling to her knees, teeth gritted against the forces that press down on her.

Alarms start ringing around them.

“We’re losing energy. Wanda can’t keep up with the amount it’s burning through.” Bruce is a flurry of motion in her peripheral vision but she can’t tear herself from the window, banging her hand against the pane.

“Peter! Come on!” she yells, pounding furiously now with her fist. “Casper, _please!_ ”

Wanda screams. An almighty flare of light pulses and Ned’s dragging her down just as the safety glass shatters in front of her, cascading down on them like hailstones, slicing through her clothes and her skin in a hundred little places. Ned’s body protects most of her and the second her ears stop ringing she’s scrambling through the wreckage on the floor to check on him, breathing a sigh of relief when he nods with a pained smile.

It’s then that she notices the red light is gone.

Michelle forces herself upright, dusting off the sharp debris until she can peer through the gaping hole where the windows used to be.

Standing in the centre of the room is Peter, whole, opaque and breathtakingly beautiful when he lays his eyes on her, gifting her the happiest grin she’s ever seen.

Her heart skips a beat. Multiple beats. Peter’s _here_ in front of her, real and very much alive.

He sways, smile fading, and his body crumples to the floor with a resounding _thump._

* * *

Michelle once again stands and stares through a window, teeth pulling helplessly at a thumbnail too short to be torn any further.

 _His body’s been through a lot,_ the doctor had told them a few hours ago. _Years spent half-alive, suspended out of sync with time…_ Michelle had stopped listening after a while, not interested in cluttering her head further with the wandering thoughts of an inquisitive professional. All she needs to know is that he’s alive and he’s going to make it past this. It’s all she can process right now.

There’s a wide variety of machinery and drips attached to his body, doctors constantly coming in to replace needles every time his body tries to heal and spit them back out. Ned had explained a lot about Peter’s powers last week, a true fountain of knowledge on anything to do with his best friend but with a keen focus on the particulars of his abilities. She lists them off now in her head, methodically reminding herself of how he’s not like other people; that he’ll recover from this within a week or two, maybe less if they’re lucky.

It’s bizarre to see him so completely. There’s no faint image of the pillow behind his head, no creased sheet beneath his twitching hand. He’s as solid as he’d once been; almost completely back to normal, once the healing and medicine and fluids have done their work. 

All that’s really left to see is what’s become of his mind.

A while ago she’d dared to get some rest, and Ned had told her afterwards that he’d woken up briefly, groggy and panicked and not entirely present. He’d succumbed quickly to the draw of sleep and there hasn’t been any indication of his rest being disturbed again, but Michelle can’t bring herself to leave again, regardless.

She just… She needs to know. One way or another, she has to know.

A woman approaches her, settling into the space at her side.

Michelle knows exactly who it is, of course, if not from Ned then from the constant vigil she has held at her nephew’s side, shaking her head in disbelief every time he shifts. 

The decision to not raise May Parker’s hopes had been a tough one, a choice made in the end by Peter, who, despite not really remembering her, didn’t want to cause her unnecessary pain should Ned’s plan not work. While Michelle hadn’t necessarily agreed - knowing that, in her place, she’d want to know no matter the outcome - it hadn’t been her place to disagree. Now, as May holds out a steaming mug of herbal tea, she’s overcome with the urge to apologise a thousand times over.

Michelle accepts the tea and shifts over so May has a better view of the bed. “Sorry,” she stutters, “I-I didn’t mean to intrude, you’re probably -”

“You have just as much reason to be here as any of us,” May says, her gentle smile reflecting in the glass.

Heat flares in her cheeks and Michelle twists to hold out her free hand. “In the rush of everything earlier, we didn’t get officially introduced. I’m -”

“You’re MJ.” May’s smile only grows as she accepts the hand extended to her, squeezing instead of shaking in a way that makes her chest swell. “You’re the girl who bought my boy home.”

Tears burn behind her nose. “Not really. That was more Ned than me.”

“Ned isn’t the one he asked for when he woke up earlier.”

Michelle almost drops her mug, eyebrows hitting her hairline as she gasps in a breath. “He - He said my name?”

May hums, sipping at what smells like a very strong coffee. “Repeatedly.”

“Oh.” Michelle finally exhales, warmth flooding her fingers and toes, trying to keep her giddy levels of joy from bubbling over into the demure mood of the hallway. “He said my name.”

May lets go of her hand only to wrap an arm around Michelle’s waist, resting her head against the younger woman’s shoulder. “I don’t know how to express my gratitude for what you’ve done for Peter - for me and everyone who loves him; for finally giving us answers after five years of nothing - but I hope you know how happy it makes me to know that he wasn’t alone all that time. Even if your time in that dorm was short, you gave him a friend - you gave him hope, and when he’s awake, I’m sure he’ll echo my sentiment; the Parker family is eternally in your debt, MJ.”

Michelle whimpers, trying to hold back the sudden flood of tears that threaten to overwhelm her. She fixes her gaze on his hand, a doctor fiddling with the cannula in his arm, and when she relaxes into May’s maternal hold, May chuckles.

“Oh dear. I know _that_ look.”

Glancing down to the smug smirk on May’s face, Michelle sniffs and asks, “What look?”

“It’s okay, I won’t tell.” May winks and Michelle’s frown only deepens. She continues, “But _you_ should. I’m sure you’ll find the feeling reciprocated.”

“What are you -”

The doctor swears loudly as the machines begin to blare out a panicked alarm, and May is gone from her side before Michelle can even register the sharp panicked cries coming from the boy in the bed, tugging furiously at the dozens of wires attached to his skin.

“Peter!” May scolds when another doctor is knocked back, “Peter Benjamin Parker, stop attacking the people trying to help you this instant!”

“May?” His voice trembles and Michelle can’t see him for all the people suddenly in the room, but she hears the gut-wrenching depths of his guilt as he finally sees his Aunt for the first time. “May, I’m _so_ sorry, I’m -”

“It’s okay, honey, you have nothing to apologise for,” she coos, and Michelle turns away from the scene, wiping at her fallen tears.

Ned races past her eagerly, crashing through the door with a cheer and a loud exclamation of his returned friend’s name. Peter’s wet laugh rings beautifully in her ears and she smiles. 

A family reunited. Not bad for a few months work.

Michelle sets down the untouched teacup and collects her jacket from the row of chairs they've been camped in since Peter's arrival.

Her job is done. Peter gets to be with the loved ones he now remembers, and they deserve this time together, finally, after far too long.

With a contented smile, she lets her feet lead her home.

* * *

A couple of days pass numbly. Keeping busy is pretty easy, catching up on the schoolwork she’s neglected over the past few weeks as they got closer to solving the last of the mystery. She spends an excessive amount of time in the library before remembering that returning to her dorm won’t lead to a run-in with Peter; he isn’t lingering around anymore.

If she’d thought finally being alone in her room would be pleasant, she knows now that it’s anything but. The space is too big without his constant bouncing about, the air too cold without his warm smile and ridiculous jokes. She misses him viscerally, feels more alone that she’s ever felt without having him around to talk to. Peter had taken up so much of her life since she started college that now, without him, it feels hollow.

Ned tries calling while she’s in class, so he sends her a message asking her to drop by; Peter’s okay but is surprisingly down for a boy who just came back from the dead. Michelle says she’ll be by soon once she’s free from the ever growing pile of work. She doesn’t promise what she can’t know for sure. The longer she spends away, the harder it is to think about facing them all once more.

May’s disappointment. Ned’s confusion. Peter’s open heart.

Michelle may be acting it, but she’s not stupid. She’d figured out May’s cryptic words not long after she made it back to her room; the issue lay in what figuring that out unlocked. 

What does she do now? Her feelings for Peter are spilling all over the place, and the last thing he needs is her piling onto the unimaginable level of stress he must be going through right now by confessing she likes him far more than she should for just a friend.

So she hides.

Not forever; just until he’s gotten a better handle of things. Maybe then they can try for something new.

After all, May and Ned have waited years to find him again. She’s had three months; they deserve their time.

This is what she tells herself each night, staring at the bookshelf until exhaustion overwhelms her.

* * *

Michelle is jolted out of an impromptu nap at her desk by a quiet knock, followed quickly by a louder, more insistent one.

Spitting a wayward hair out of her mouth, she feels a nervous sweat break out across her entire body. The desk chair skitters across the floor with the force of her sudden movement as she jumps to her feet, smoothing her hands over her tired face and crumpled clothing.

Michelle clears her throat and swipes the last of the sleep from her eyes, fingers shaking as they reach for the door handle.

She opens it.

There on the other side, Peter leans against the doorframe, out of breath but smiling softly at her bewildered expression.

“MJ,” he says on an exhale, sharp eyes roaming over her figure. “It’s you. You’re MJ.”

Something a lot like devastation wracks through her bones. Does he not remember her, after all?

“And you’re here.” Michelle crosses an arm across her chest to subtly pinch the other one, unsure if this whole thing is actually a dream. It hurts way more than she expects and she flinches, which only broadens the boy’s smile. “Peter, you… You’re _here_.”

“Of course I’m here. With great difficulty, actually. Turns out walking is pretty tiring when you’ve been able to fling yourself through dimensions to get to where you want to go.” His smile falters and his eyes glance over her shoulder. “Can I come in?”

“Yes, yeah, of course.” Michelle moves back and he steps cautiously into the room, his walk reminding her of a newborn calf trying to find their feet for the first time. Despite her turmoil, she presses her lips together against an amused smile and closes the door behind him, leaning against it as he dithers in the middle of the space.

Does he remember this space as hers or as his? Does he remember how they shared it, not so long ago?

In front of the window, she’s struck once more by how strange it is to see the winter sun blocked by his body instead of streaming through it. He holds himself differently now, like gravity weighs harder on him than most, but there’s a defiant set to his jaw like he’s not prepared to lose the fight against it. It would be funny, to see so clearly how experience can affect a person, if not for making it feel like she’s looking at a stranger.

Peter opens his mouth, about to speak, when it snaps shut with a flush. He focuses instead on looking around, ending up in his favourite spot with a thoughtful tilt to his head.

“I uh, I thought I’d complete the family,” he says softly, and when his hand shifts she sees the smallest nesting doll finally back in its rightful place. Something tugs at her chest, to watch Peter finishing his favourite pastime. It’s achingly familiar yet entirely new.

“Peter,” she whispers, tongue exploring the consonants and vowels like it’s the very first time, “Do you… Please tell me if - say that you remember.”

He’s quiet for a long time, staring at the dolls, his finger running over that goddamn book’s spine. She’s teetering on the edge of a world she understands and a drop into the abyss of nothing, but with a half turn and an uneasy grimace, he knocks her off balance.

“I remember your importance,” he says softly, “I remember your name and I remember this room, but - It’s a puzzle I don’t have all the pieces for, and I don’t know what image I’m supposed to be making with the ones I do.”

“I see.” Michelle tugs at the hem of her shirt, pulling at a loose thread until there’s a hole in the fabric. “That’s uh, it’s -”

“They discharged me from the medical wing today,” he says in a rush, stumbling forward a step. “Maybe an hour or two ago, actually. I was going home and... something led me here instead.”

Michelle’s eyes snap up to his face and he gives her this hopeless little smile that reminds her exactly of her ghost. Something weightless and delicate in her chest asks if, despite his foggy memory, he is one and the same with the boy now in front of her.

“Oh,” she breathes. “You -”

He nods when the words don’t come, understanding her anyway.

Michelle steps closer and Peter stands frozen, chest barely expanding with his breaths. His shirt fits him strangely, and it’s even weirder to see him in blue after months of the same dark fabric, but she still sees the shifting of his muscles as she inhales sharply, getting as close as she dares before her quivering hand pushes into the little space left between them.

“It’s okay,” he says gently, but this time he’s not curious; he’s patient and sure, and he’s only surprised by where her hand settles; not his shoulder but held against his own.

His skin is startlingly warm but the slide of his fingers as they lace with hers is a comfort in its familiarity. Releasing the breath she didn’t know she was holding, she closes her eyes and focuses on the feel of it; solid and strong and present, just like he is now as he stands before her, waiting for her to adjust like he has all the time in the world to spend with her.

Her eyes flicker open, only to find Peter’s face startlingly close to her own, something burning in his gaze that makes her knees weak and her heart pound.

“I know I don’t remember everything,” he says, voice husky and deep as his eyes flit down to her mouth, “but I’d really, _really_ like to know you again. Maybe, now we can actually leave this room, I could take you to din-”

“Peter?”

“Yeah?”

“Shut up and kiss me.”

Her free hand cups his jaw and they both lean in until their lips meet in a searing kiss, his arms wrapping around her waist as she melts into him. It’s electric and powerful and perfect, even when his nose bumps into hers, even when their chins collide as they press closer, his mouth opening with a sigh as her fingers tangle in his hair.

Peter pulls back first, just enough to feel their chests heaving together as they gasp for breath. He huffs out a laugh, his smile lighting up the whole room.

Michelle hums, mouth tugging up helplessly into a shy smile. “Not bad for a guy who’s been dead for five years.” 

“Fuck, MJ, that was…”

She’s swept up in the feel of him, her hands smoothing down his chest as she considers how long she’ll have to wait before he kisses her like that again. His warmth intoxicates her and she leans in again, ready to taste his smile when it falls and he sighs wistfully into the tiny distance that remains.

“So was that a yes to dinner?”

“I could eat now?” she replies, a thrill running up her spine when his eyes sparkle humorously at her.

“Sounds great, feels like I haven’t eaten a meal in _forever_.” Peter’s arms tighten around her and he swallows her laugh with a chaste kiss. “That reminds me actually. I have one more question.”

“Oh, okay.”

He takes a moment to stare deep into her eyes, transfixing her to the spot as his hand strokes over her hair, caressing down her cheek and lingering at her neck.

And then, with all the sincerity he can muster, he asks, “Can I keep you?”

Michelle splutters over her horror. “Wh- did you just make a - oh god, is Peter Parker actually a little shit?” She wrinkles her nose in distaste and pushes out of his hold. “I’ve changed my mind. I’m not hungry at all.”

Peter laughs, catching up to her in two easy strides. “Then why can I hear your stomach growling like you haven’t eaten all day?”

“Ugh, I’m really going to hate your lame powers, aren’t I?”

“Is that a promise?” Peter takes her hand once more, for the first time confident in joining it with his, his grip firm and unbreakable. “Come on, MJ. It’s been five years since I ate a slice of pizza. You gonna make me wait any longer?”

Michelle rolls her eyes. “Peter Parker is also dramatic, I take it.”

His smirk is telling, yet hides a thousand secrets she can’t wait to know. 

“Fine, pizza it is.”

Michelle tugs him by the hand to the door, opening it wide with a sweep of her arm. “Are you ready?”

Peter takes a breath, smiles, and together they cross the threshold.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> MJ: Guess I can't call you Casper now, huh?  
> Peter: You could call me something else, maybe - like, your boyfriend?
> 
> @mjonesing on Tumblr as always if you'd like to scream about anything in this fic or the BEGINNING OF FILMING

**Author's Note:**

> OHHHHH SHITTTTTT
> 
> Let me know your thoughts and theories and opinions!
> 
> Have a teaser for Part 2:
> 
> "MJ?" he gasps when he sees her staring from the middle of the room, tugging at the frayed hem of her pyjama shorts. "What are you doing?"
> 
> @mjonesing on Tumblr as always.


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